To Be Burned by Fire
by riseagainsttboi
Summary: Tagline: Revenge has never tasted any sweeter without a grand master plan. Sequel to You Should Never Play with Fire. Includes some familiar characters from other anime shows!
1. Chapter 1

Mia Yakitoshi trudged out through the metal front gates of Asahikawa High School. The heels of her black shoes clicked softly as she walked away from her school. It had been another boring day, she concluded as she reflected back. More stares and hushed whispers coming from her fellow classmates. Even after nearly two years of having to endure her in their presence, they still had the need to treat her like an outsider. Not that Mia was really complaining though. She liked, no _loved_, being alone.

However, if she loved being alone, she couldn't help sometimes wonder why she even stuck to staying in this god-forsaken, boring school. She had no need for the boring lessons there, the teachers that constantly pester her about her choice in keeping her hair long and not the length that the school rules required, and certainly she had no need for the students who were frightened of her, though she didn't really give them a reason to be afraid of her.

"Hey, Mia!" a familiar male voice called to her from behind.

Mia cringed and ground her teeth in annoyance as she let her waist-length, raven black hair fall on either side of her face like curtains. She did not stop to wait for the owner of the voice to catch up and continued on walking away.

"Mia Yakitoshi! Wait up for me!" the voice continued shouting.

Mia heard his hurried footsteps catch up to her and inwardly cursed. Everyone in her school, even the teachers, kept their distance away from Mia but not Tenchi Masaki, who was well thought of by many in Asahikawa High. From day one when Mia first entered the classroom, Tenchi had always been trying to be her friend. It was in vain though because every time Mia would reject him in the worse terms possible. Yet, Tenshi still persisted.

None but Tenchi Masaki can vex me so, she thought darkly as she passed a group of freshmen girls who immediately quieted down as she passed. Mia blew up at her short bangs to get them out of her eyesight. Suddenly four long-ago familiar male faces swam into Mia's mind, unwanted and hated, sending Mia's blood boiling and caused her to stop walking. _Okay, maybe I was wrong about Tenchi being the _only _one who can vex me_, Mia thought again and shook her head to get rid of the faces.

At that moment, a rather sweaty hand caught her cold left hand and spun her around so that she now stared face to face at a rather breathless Tenchi Masaki.

Mia gave Tenchi her deadliest glare, but that didn't seem to faze the young boy any bit, who was quite used to her death glares by now. Tenchi stood at least a foot taller than her so that the top of her head just barely reached his shoulders. Tenchi had wide puppy brown eyes that made any girl looking into them melt. Any girl but Mia Yakitoshi that is.

"What do you want, _baka_?" she snapped and ripped her hand away from Tenshi's. Mia clenched her left hand into a tight fist and willed herself not to punch his lights out.

Tenchi only smiled warmly down at her. "Mia, wanna come over to my house so we could study for our history test?" he asked politely. As a sign of his anxiousness for her answer, he began to pull at the short hair tail he had grown at the back of his head.

Mia rolled her eyes. Not again, she thought. "Didn't I just tell you to leave me alone like the rest of them?" she spat venomously with a hint of a threat in her tone.

Tenchi stopped pulling at his hair tail and tilted his head to the side a little with a sad look on his face; a perfect puppy look. Tenchi shook his head slowly as if he couldn't understand why she would reject a kind gesture towards friendship as he had just done. "Because I want to be your-"

Mia interrupted him rudely. "You want to be my _friend_?" she asked coldly and gave him a small, sharp laugh. She watched in satisfaction as Tenchi winced at the bitterness underneath the sound. "I don't need a friend!" Mia added harshly. "So just _leave me alone!_" Without another word, Mia spun on her heel so fast that her knee-length black skirt that was part of her uniform briefly flew up and stomped away from the stunned teenage boy.

I don't need _anyone_, Mia told herself for the thousandth upon thousandth time since she moved here nearly two years ago. And I certainly don't need to be friends with the son of a _demon hunter_, she added mentally. Mia tugged irritably at the black scarf she was forced to wear around her neck and checked the time on the plastic black watch she wore on her left wrist. It was half past mid-afternoon.

"I'm going to be late," she murmured. She threw a cautious look over her shoulder and then began to quicken her pace.

Her high school was slightly separated from the city by a little drawbridge that was located over a rather large creek. Beyond the area where her high school was located went deeper into suburbia where most of the student populace lived. Only those who either were very rich or had families working in the city could afford to live there. Mia didn't have any family members working in the city. In fact, she didn't have any family members at all. Although considered quite young to be living by herself by her peers, she lived all alone in a tiny apartment in the city that was located above a coffee shop.

However, Mia wasn't going to her "home" yet. As she crossed the little drawbridge and walked into the more rural areas of the city, her dark brown eyes were very alert, as if she expected an ambush of sorts. She stopped in front of a dark alleyway that had a dead end and inconspicuously stepped inside the shadows. With the average person's set of eyes, they would have found themselves surrounded almost completely by the crushing darkness. Not Mia Yakitoshi, though. Quite the opposite. She felt at home because she was looking through the darkness as if it were daylight in the alley. Slipping off her school bag, she unzipped it and drew out a heavy material of cloth before hiding her bag inside an empty garbage can and quickly throwing on the black cloak so that it revealed no part of her. Just as she firmly secured the hood over her head, Mia noticed that the entrance of the alleyway was blocked by two figures.

"Anyone in there?" the figure on the left asked hesitantly.

Mia noticed that they were both male and wore cheesy disguises like long raincoats that buttoned down the front with baseball hats each and sunglasses. Mia stepped out of the shadows and smirked. "I'm right here," she replied in a voice filled with silky coldness.

The two jumped in surprise and the baseball hat of the figure on the left fell to the ground to reveal a pair of red eyes that were staring at Mia in fear.

"D-Don't do that!" he cried and bent to pick up his hat.

Mia sneered at him and his partner. "You have what I want?" she demanded.

The figure fit his hat back on his head and gave his partner a nod. Out from an inner pocket in his coat, his partner produced a single silver dagger. It was a beautiful dagger with Celtic designs along the hilt. The figure that had the dagger started to give it to Mia, but his partner stopped him.

"You have what we want?" he demanded, a greedy gleam in his red eyes.

Mia nodded and out from her large cloak pocket she produced a large glass pickle jar and held it up. Mia stared emotionlessly at the head floating in the jar. For a moment, a spark of anger ignited within her stomach as she stared at the dead empty eyes of Kisei the Elemental Master, but Mia remembered that Kisei was no more and quickly tore her eyes away from her old tormentor. She looked back at the two demon merchants before her. Their eyes, one red and one blue, were gleaming with their open greed as they stared at Kisei's head in the jar. Remembering themselves, their eyes turned to Mia's face, which they still could not see because of her hood.

"Give us the head," Blue Eyes said quickly and then held out the dagger he held.

Mia nodded stiffly and swiftly took a few steps forward and grabbed the dagger. Red Eyes grabbed the jar out of her other hand quickly just in case she decided to not hold up the end of their bargain. Mia took a few steps back, twirling the dagger in her left hand and feeling very pleased right now as she watched the dagger spin.

"So this concludes our business, Nightfire," Red Eyes said gleefully.

Blue Eyes' attention was snapped away from the prize he and his partner had received and his eyes moved rapidly between his partner and Mia. The look on his face made Mia assume he had been left out of the information of her name. "N-Nightfire?" he croaked in terror. His frightened blue eyes froze on Mia's figure. "You're N-Nightfire?! I heard you were _dead_!" he shouted. His eyes and now that of his partner's watched as Mia began to toss the dagger up in the air and catch it deftly with her left hand.

"She _is_ dead," Mia replied coldly. "She died by the same demon whose head you now hold. I am-was," she corrected herself quickly, "Was her apprentice before she was captured and taken into the custody of the Spirit World brat and his meddling detectives," she informed them.

Blue Eyes sighed loudly with relief and then smacked the back of Red Eyes' head. "How come you didn't tell me that beforehand, you dolt?" Blue Eyes reprimanded.

Red Eyes turned to face his partner. "Because I didn't think it was necessary!" he yelled.

Mia interrupted them by clearing her throat. "Thank you very much boys for my prizes," she told them and smiled evilly.

Red Eyes eyed her warily. "_Prizes?_" he demanded.

Mia nodded and took a menacing step towards them, which they responded by both taking a step back. They now noticed with rising terror the twin blood red with black flecked orbs looking at them from within the hood. With her free hand, Mia clutched the edge of her hood.

"Meet the face of _death_ boys," she hissed and pushed back her hood. Like so many of her victims in the past, the two demons stared with an open-mouthed mixture of horror and wonder at the facial image of beauty in front of them. However, until recently, two years to be exact, none of Mia's other victims had seen the jagged scar running from under her left eye and down to her chin. Mia held up the hand she had pushed back her hood with and snapped her fingers.

Instantly, large orange flames erupted all over the two demons. Red Eyes dropped the jar with Kisei's head and it shattered, spilling the embalming liquid and head onto the ground. The two demons' cries of pain were never heard as they slowly burned into ashes with Mia's demonic eyes staring emotionlessly at them with the reflection of the flickering flames in her eyes.

Mia snapped her fingers again and the flames quickly extinguished themselves, leaving only two piles of grey, smoking ashes. Walking over towards the area, she looked down to the left of Red Eyes' ashes and locked eyes with Kisei's dead ones that stared up at her. "Don't look at me like that," she cooed and slowly picked up his head by his main of equally raven black hair. Although at the moment, there were bright red streaks running through Mia's long hair. Tucking her newly acquired dagger deep into her pocket, she snapped her fingers and the large pickle jar, completely fixed, appeared in her left hand. Mia roughly threw Kisei's head inside the jar and stashed it once more into her cloak pocket. Another snap of her fingers and she held her school bag. Removing her cloak and placing it in her bag, she slung her school bag over one shoulder and exited the alleyway.

As she walked out of the rural area of the city and finally made her way towards her apartment, the only thought in her mind was that she was drawing herself a little closer to four people who had no clue what she had in store for them.


	2. Chapter 2

In the Spirit World, Prince Koenma Daioh poured relentlessly over the paperwork on his desk, most specifically giving his attention to a file his leading spy had just given him an hour ago. He was much stumped as to why two more demons found in the Human World had been killed. While there were no traces of their bodies found, it could be assumed that they had been killed. According to his spies stationed in the area where this disturbance had occurred, the two demonic auras just disappeared just after a third demonic aura was sensed with them. Then just as quickly as the two original auras had disappeared, the third one had also escaped his spies' notice without a trace.

Koenma made an exasperated noise with the back of his throat as he remembered the conversation he had shared with his leading spy from that area.

* * *

"I am quite sorry, sir," he had said. "The third aura just vanished into thin air."

Koenma slammed his fists angrily on his desk. "Is that all you can say?" he shouted.

The lead spy began to speak more rapidly, seeing his boss' temper rising steadily. "Before the three auras disappeared, my team and I were able to determine that the first two were lower-level demons. The third, however . . ." The spy shook jos head in wonder. "The third aura was from a demon that had the power to match up to an upper A-class demon."

* * *

Koenma began to gnaw on his pacifier in aggravation. "How can a demon with that kind of power just escape the notice of a team of my seasoned spies?" he asked himself out loud.

At that moment, Boton came crashing through his office on her flying oar. She swerved dangerously around, upsetting the already chaotic environment of ogres. "Koenma!" the ferry girl greeted her boss happily. "The Spirit Detectives have just arrived from their latest mission, and I have told them to report to your office immediately," she informed the frustrated-looking child.

Koenma nodded his head numbly and waved her off. As soon as Boton flew out of the two golden doors, four boys entered his office. Three of them who towered over the fourth were covered in sticky green slime. Koenma focused his gaze on the three.

"What happened to you?" he asked them curiously.

Yusuke grunted, feeling peeved. "Stupid swamp demons ambushed us when we tried to turn off that stupid monitor you told us to turn off," he said. He gave Koenma a glare. "What the heck do ya want this time, baby-butt?" he demanded. All Yusuke wanted was to go home, take a shower, and then possibly go around town looking for someone's butt to kick.

Koenma also glared but decided to let this one slide. Ever since that day two years ago when he had failed to negotiate a deal to bring back their fifth team mate, Amaya Toshi, most of the boys' respect for him had greatly diminished, if they still even had respect for him at all. The child sighed heavily and picked up the folder his lead spy had given him.

"Two more demons had appeared and then were killed in the Human World," he started as he held out the folder.

Kurama walked forward and took the folder. "Were they found in the same area?" he asked as he started looking through the folder. Kuwabara and Yusuke gathered around him while Hiei remained standing by himself, aloof from everyone in the room.

There wasn't much in it but written accounts from the spies of what they had witnessed. "_Three demonic auras were sensed around three fifty-six o' clock, human time_," he read out loud. "_All three were gathered in the outskirts of Tokyo, near a school called Asahikawa High_."

Kuwabara looked up from where he was reading. "I thought you said two demons were in the Human World," he said in confusion.

"No, I said two demons had appeared and were killed in the Human World," Koenma repeated, this time with annoyance. "And so I'm calling on you all to-"

Suddenly, Hiei said out loud, "This is ridiculous." Without another word, he turned around and began to head for the door.

"Hiei, where do you think you're _going_?" Koenma shouted at the retreating figure above the general noise his ogres were making. His shouts had attracted the other three Spirit Detectives' attentions. "You come back here, or I swear-!" The two great golden doors slammed behind the lone figure. The room was momentarily silent before the ogres continued with their jobs. Koenma heavily sat back on his chair, shaking his head. "Why do I get the feeling that he will be the death of me?" he muttered under his breath. When he looked up at his remaining detectives, he saw that only Kurama remained.

"Where did Yusuke and Kuwabara go?" Koenma demanded. He hadn't even heard them leave.  
Kurama looked apologetic. Although he was the only one out of the four who learned to respect Koenma's decision, he still had lost some of his respect for the prince. While the Spirit Detectives had tried to find out what had happened to Amaya, Koenma had not. "They left right after Hiei," Kurama explained.

Koenma rubbed his temples, feeling a headache starting to form. "Well Kurama, as you know, these mysterious demon disappearances have been going on for well over a year," Koenma started.

Kurama nodded. "I also noticed that in the file, the two demons that were killed were low-class, while the third that accompanied them had a power level that far exceeded theirs," he observed.

Koenma intertwined his fingers in front of him on the desk. A disturbed look crossed his face. "Then you should know that it is the third demon that my spies had sensed that concerns me the most."

Kurama nodded seriously. They had come to a silent understanding that this third demon could be what was causing the killings of all those other demons. Why not just assumed that these demons had disappeared instead of being killed off? one might ask. That would be a better way to go about things, but over the past year, traces of some of those demons had actually been found; _demon parts_. What made this time so different from the others was that a powerful demon had been sensed just before the last two were killed.

"I've recently come up with a plan," Koenma slowly began. "In light of this new demon suddenly appearing, I think this plan just might work."

"And does this plan have anything to do with the high school near to where the demons have been appearing?"

"Actually, the plan has everything to do with Asahikawa High School," Koenma told him. "However, in order for this plan to work, I'll need _everyone's_ full cooperation."

Although Koenma said he needed all four Spirit Detectives, they both knew he especially meant Hiei's cooperation in this.

Kurama looked thoughtful troubled. He knew as well as Koenma that Hiei's loyalty was diminishing each passing day. Both were a little nervous about how long it will take until Hiei believed there was nothing to hold him back from the community service he still owed Koenma. "Well, I'll speak with them right away, Koenma." Kurama turned around and left, leaving the child with an unsettling feeling in his gut.


	3. Chapter 3

_Another day, another waste_, Mia Yakitoshi thought gloomily as she readied herself for school in her small apartment. Her school uniform was a great nuisance in her opinion, but she did agree somewhat with the black and white that were the school's colors. Mia had chosen well when she registered into Asahikawa High School two years ago. Overall, the uniform was strictly black with the exception of the white sailor collar, her sleeve cuffs that fit snug around her thin wrists, and the crisp clean socks that went half-way up her calves. Mia blew her bangs out of her dark eyes before glaring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She ran a finger lightly over the little scar nearly two inches long that started from the bottom of her left eye and dipped down to her chin.

After slipping on her black shoes in her front door, she slammed it shut. The loud bang slowly faded as she walked down the spiraling metal staircase that led out into the alleyway beside the coffee shop her apartment was situated over. With a sharp turn that sent her long hair swishing behind her like the end of a cape, she walked out of the alley and into the streets. It was very early in the morning; too early for any normal teenager, but Mia didn't have any other transportation means like those who lived in the city. They were the ones who were rich enough so that their parents could drive them to school or have bicycles that help them get to school. Being as early as it was, Mia barely saw any of these people. Those that did happen to pass her lonely figure as she crossed the bridge over the large creek separating the city from the suburbs did not even give her a second glance.

When Mia arrived at her school, she walked through the gates and into the main school building. After quickly taking whatever books she needed for the day, she slowly walked up many flights of stairs toward the rooftop. Icy cold morning air immediately hit her face. Autumn was just beginning and soon winter would come. Mia dropped her school bag and her books in a heap in front of her after she closed the exit door. She carelessly stepped over them. As a morning ritual of sorts, she walked the whole perimeter of the roof, emotionlessly watching the happenings of her fellow classmates from her bird's-eye view. A steel cage that towered over her prevented her or anyone foolish enough to fall off the edge, accidental or not. Mia stopped and gripped the cage. She closed her eyes for a moment before sitting down on that spot. Curling her legs under her, Mia began to meditate even as the muffled sounds of her principal's voice speaking from the speaker system began to penetrate through the layers of cement.

This was another ritual in itself. Mia would come up to the roof and meditate even as she skipped the assembly happening in the auditorium in the first floor. She remained there on the roof until the principal dismissed the congregation of students and staff members.

Her first and only class was on the second floor out of four in total. Changing into different classrooms was not part of the system. Instead, the students stayed in their homerooms and every new period, different teachers would move into their classroom.

No one said so much as a word of greeting to Mia as she walked into her classroom. Rather, people nearly hurtled out of her way as she walked towards the very back of the classroom. More than half of the class was already in there, either at their seats or around their friend's seats chatting. For the first time today, she was inwardly happy that no one dared to speak to her; or even look at her for that matter. Her classmates, boy and girl alike, had learned long ago to never contact her in any way. Yet that didn't stop the hushed whispers all around her.

Then there was Tenchi Masaki.

No sooner had Mia took her place in the very back of the class in the shadowy corner when Tenchi walked through the door. Chatter that had been subdued when she had come in rose again considerably when Tenchi arrived. The girls greeted him in happy high-pitched voices while the boys he passed gave him high-fives or pats on the back.

"Yo, Mr. Class President!" another random boy shouted as he gave Tenchi a rather hard smack on his back.

Tenchi hid his wince of pain and smiled. "Hey Toguri," he said pleasantly as he passed the tall skinny teen. Just as he had always done, Tenchi walked to the back of the class and stopped in front of Mia's desk. "_Ohayo_ Mia," he greeted her as pleasantly as he had greeted everyone else. Mia didn't look up from the book she was reading when he had wished her a good morning. Even though Mia acted as though he wasn't there, as Tenchi settled in his seat in front of her own, he continued to talk to her. "I didn't see you at the assembly this morning. Actually, I _never_ see you at an assembly." Tenchi laughed lightly in his attempt to make small talk to his stony classmate. "Why don't you ever go?" he asked curiously when he had turned around in his seat to face her better.

When Mia continued to ignore him, Tenchi continued to talk as if she had said something. He was used to Mia's silence. "You missed a pretty important announcement from Principal Kobayashi," he began. "There's going to be a three-way exchange program that our school's-" Tenchi felt a hesitant tap on his shoulder and turned around.

"Hey Tenchi," Toguri said. His eyes shifted nervously to the silent female figure behind his class president before turning back to him. Toguri licked his lips and leaned closer to Tenchi's ear, covering his mouth so as not to be overheard. "Why don't you sit with me and my friends up in the front instead of back here with _her_?" he whispered with heavy emphasis. His eyes swiveled to Mia Yakitoshi again, but she appeared to not have heard him. That or she didn't care.

Tenchi smiled, although he felt a bit irritated like he always felt whenever his classmates treated Mia Yakitoshi in this manner. "Look Toguri, thanks for the offer, but I want to sit here with Mia," he told the other boy.

Toguri looked exasperated, indicating that this was a conversation that they had had more than once before. Still in a hushed voice, he spoke again. "I know you want to be friendly to everyone, man, but ya gotta realize she's a lost cause! She doesn't want anyone to talk to her. Ever."

_Too true_, Mia thought darkly. She heard every word of their conversation. While she didn't like Toguri any more than she liked Tenchi Masaki, she was satisfied that he could figure out by himself that neither of their company was wanted.

Tenchi was about to answer, angrily this time, but then a soft voice from behind Toguri asked him to move out of the way. Toguri jumped as if he had been electrocuted. He looked at Tenchi warningly one more time before he returned to his seat and friends.

Tenchi didn't realize he had been sitting at the edge of his seat until he sat back with a sigh. He turned to the girl who had just sat next to him on his left. "_Ohayo_ Maya," he said in a fake cheerful tone, although all he wanted to do right now was give Toguri a piece of his mind about being mean to others.

Maya Lain slowly turned her head towards him. For a moment, Tenchi thought Maya could sense what he was feeling, but it passed when she smiled at him. "Oh hello, Tenchi Masaki," she greeted him in that same soft voice of hers that always made her sound like she was surprised at everything.

Mia chose that time to finally look up from her book and stare at this newcomer. At the same time, their first teacher of the day entered the room. A second later, the bell rang and those who were not in their seats already were reprimanded. As one, all the students stood up and bowed respectfully to the teacher before sitting down again. When their teacher began the day's lesson, Mia still kept her eye on Maya.

Maya Lain was peculiar in everyone's eye. At times, she could be like the happiest person in their class, always helping anyone in need and really smart also. The teachers loved her "intuitive mind", and Maya, being naturally as curious as a newborn kitten, wasn't afraid to ask questions, even if some of the questions she posed were a bit personal. She tried to be on everyone's good side, though in Mia's opinion, Maya tried too hard to be accepted by people and that irked her to no end.

However, there was another side of Maya that intrigued Mia. When she thought no one would notice, Maya would sometimes become withdrawn, sometimes becoming listless or even daydream away. Yet this did not keep Maya and Mia's fellow classmates from completely ignoring the former like they did with the latter (although Tenchi was an exception). Indeed, both students and teachers liked Maya for her quiet and honest ways. Maya was liked so much that she had been elected their senior class vice-president.

From the first moment Mia had ever met this strange girl, she felt that Maya Lain was unlike most ordinary teenagers. Maya had an aura surrounding her like that of the boy who sat in front of Mia. However, Mia already knew that Tenchi Masaki had inherited his strange aura from his mother's side; although, he didn't know this.

Mia thought how these two seemingly simple teenagers reminded her painfully of two other teenagers she once knew in her long dead past. Images of these people that had previously only haunted her dreams began to invade her mind as she copied the notes on the blackboard. The knuckles of Mia's left hand holding her pencil began to turn white as she unknowingly applied more pressure to her grip. Deep anger began to grow inside Mia. Her pencil snapped. The sharp noise drove away the images.

Mia was still blinking away her anger when something was placed on the upper left corner of her desk. Mia turned her head and looked into Maya Lain's eyes. There was something in those light brown depths that Mia could not understand, but she was sure that it was neither pity nor the want of friendship.

Maya bobbed her head once, knowing that she wouldn't expect a thank you from this cold girl that everyone but Tenchi Masaki tried to avoid at all costs. Wordlessly, she turned back to the front again as if she hadn't just given Mia Yakitoshi her pencil.

Mia's emotionless eyes lowered down the said object. She stared at it blankly for a few moments then lifted a hand towards it. Mia pressed a finger on its wooden surface before pushing it off her desk. It fell onto the floor and the lead part broke. The loud noise it made in the silent class drew all eyes towards the back where the students and teacher saw only the broken pencil and Mia Yakitoshi's head bent over her work with a new pencil in her hand as if nothing happened.

But judging by the pained look on Maya Lain's delicate facial features, something had happened.

* * *

Lunch seemed to take a long time in coming. When it did, everyone, even Mia, was glad. Beside passing periods, lunch was the only time there was any socializing between classmates. To avoid the usual clog rush in the cafeteria, which was ruled strictly by the "first come first served" rule, many students bring lunch from home. The cafeteria wasn't the usual scene to eat lunches. On the contrary, students usually stayed in their homerooms and ate with their friends and fellow homeroom classmates.

Toguri looked up from the group he always ate with as Tenchi Masaki walked by the clump of desks he and his friends had pushed together to eat at. Toguri grabbed his class president's arm and pulled him back towards his group's table.

"Hey Tenchi! Where ya going? Come eat with us!" Toguri exclaimed through a mouth full of homemade tempura.

The bento box filled with Tenchi's lunch he had been carrying with one hand nearly slipped out of his grasp. Tenchi quickly hugged the lunchbox closer to his chest as he turned to face Toguri with a sheepish look on his face. "Sorry Toguri, but I thought that I could eat lunch up on the roof with Mia," he said while scratching the back of his head with his free hand.

Toguri gaped open-mouthed at him. "Why would you want to hang out with _her_?" he choked. "If it's about her being lonely or something, forget about it then. She _always_ does this every lunch! She _wants_ to be a loner!"

Tenchi smiled slightly even though he felt a bit irritated by his friend's behavior towards Mia Yakitoshi. "Yeah, that's true, but I think she'd be hungry. I never see her bring anything to eat from home or even buy food from the cafeteria. Plus, this'd be a great way to try to befriend her," he said complacently.

"Hey, are you guys talking about that Mia chick?" asked a boy sitting on Toguri's left.

"_Her?_ Man, she's totally weird! Like, that weird scar on her face. I wonder where she-"

Tenchi took this opportunity to quickly walk away from the group as their topic of conversation turned to the mysterious and anti-social Mia Yakitoshi. Conversations about her were typically normal in their homeroom, although everyone avoided that topic whenever she was around. Tenchi never participated in these unless it was to back up Mia, as if he had an obligation to defend her.

Without attracting any unwanted attention, Tenchi stole up to the rooftop. The exit door was unlocked when Tenchi slowly turned the brass knob with his free hand. He shuddered when an icy blast of air hit his face as he stepped onto the roof. Suddenly his cotton school uniform didn't seem as comfortable as he usually felt it did. Despite that the sun hung high in the air winter was making its mark with the wind.

Mia was still on the roof. She was sitting opposite of the door with her back leaning onto the steel cage. Her eyes had been closed in meditation, but when the wind blew the exit door, causing it to bang shut, her angry dark brown eyes were glaring at the intruder. Mia jumped to her feet, her long raven black hair swishing around her. Her whole body cast an aura of irritation, yet she spoke with an emotionless tone.

"What are you doing here?" Mia demanded as she stared Tenchi down, which was quite hard since he was much taller than her.

Though warning bells of self-preservation were ringing loudly in Tenchi's head, he managed to smile warmly at Mia and held up the bento box still in his hand. "I thought I could share my lunch with you," he said.

Mia blinked as a look of confusion quickly crossed her pale face. Yet it was soon replaced with a dark scowl. "You wasted your time coming here," she told him scathingly. She saw that Tenchi was walking towards her and actually jumped into a fighting stance, but soon she scowled again when Tenchi just passed by her and sat down next to the spot she had been previously meditating.

Tenchi crossed his legs and looked up at her with the smile still on his face, like an innocent puppy. "Well if you don't want to share my lunch, at least I can see the view of the school grounds from here and also keep you company," he said and then grinned cheerily.

Mia stared at him in disbelief. What was it going to take to make this ignorant fool leave her alone? But no, she'd figure that out later. Mia walked a few feet away from him before sitting down again with her back towards the steel wires. However, Tenchi Masaki had no intention of giving up that easily. As Mia sat cross-legged with her eyes closed in meditation, Tenchi silently scooted closer to her until only a few inches of cold concrete floor separated them. He finally began to eat his lunch, right out from his bento box, but not without commenting between bites how great the food was to Mia's growing annoyance.

"Are you sure you don't want to try some?" Tenchi asked again. This time he took a piece of sushi with his chopsticks and waved the raw fish underneath Mia's nose.

Mia finally snapped her eyes open and glared daggers at him. "Fine! If it will make you leave me alone!" she snapped as she grabbed the piece of food from his chopsticks and popped it into her mouth. She sat there silently chewing vigorously at first until her mouth gradually slowed down. As soon as she swallowed, Mia knew she had made a mistake in giving into her temper and taking the raw fish. Now her usually silent stomach was rumbling for more of Tenchi's food.

Tenchi has also heard her stomach growling and held up another pair of chopsticks with his free hand, smiling cheekily. Almost half-expecting Mia to stubbornly refuse the offer as she always did, he was pleasantly surprised when the extra pair of chopsticks was snatched away from his hand and Mia was dipping them into his bento box. Feeling as if his face would split from the wide smile he had on now, Tenchi prudently said no more as they finished his lunch.

"You seem very hungry," remarked Tenchi in an attempt to make light conversation as Mia's chopsticks dived down for the fourth time. However, this seemed to be the wrong thing to say as her chopsticks clattered to the floor along with the shrimp tempura she had been about to eat. A stunned, frozen look was upon Mia's features before anger quickly swept into her eyes which turned into slits.

Mia jumped to her feet and slowly began to step away from Tenchi. She still faced him, but her movements caused the boy to think of a dangerous predator having been rudely surprised. Tenchi quickly placed his chopsticks into his empty bento box and also got to his feet. He slowly began to walk towards her like someone would to a scared animal, but Mia pointed at him threateningly. In a deadly tone, she warned him to never come near her again.

Without another word, she spun on her heel and left with a bang of the exit door.


	4. Chapter 4

The Demon World had always been a fascinating and almost beautiful world in Nightfire's blood red and obsidian flecked eyes. There was no other land in the Human or the Spirit World where one could kill freely and almost get away with it every time without no one's notice.

Yet tonight there would be no demonic blood shed by her hands. At least, not yet anyway.

No one took interest in the cloaked figure walking swiftly through the crowded streets of Gandhara, the territory ruled by the newly made demon king Yomi. Gandhara looked just like a modern city in Japan with many distinct differences. There were many beings cloaked like this figure out in the city. However, if any one of them had looked into this particular figure's eyes, not many of them could say that other cloaked figures had two-colored eyes.

Nightfire took a sharp left turn down a narrow and cramped alleyway that had her shuffling sideways like a crab. Stretching her arm out with the naked palm of her pale hand, she began to grope the jagged wall her back was pressed until her fingertips phased through an illusion in the wall. Nightfire smirked as she passed through the secret entrance and walked up the crooked steps. She found herself in a dark room filled with only a large round table and two chairs on opposite ends. There was all ready someone sitting on the farthest chair as if he had been waiting for her for quite a while now.

He noticed the new arrival and quickly stood up, stretching a proffered claw out towards his client. Nightfire ignored the gesture and sat down on the unoccupied chair across from him, leaving the demon's boar-like facial features looking flustered as he sat back down. He cleared his scaly throat and folded his claws before him on top of the table.

"I've looked over your request," he began in a low rumble, "and my partner and I have agreed to it." He looked over Nightfire's shoulder at someone behind her in the corner. Another claw extended itself past the left side of Nightfire's head and this one she took, but only briefly. Unlike his partner, this second demon's aura was at a much higher level. However, Nightfire couldn't help but scoff "_partner_" as the second demon sauntered past her and stood beside the first demon.

"So I suppose you have new information about what Koenma's coping with the demons turning up in the Human World?" Nightfire inquired icily.

Second Demon nodded. It was obvious he was the one in charge. From inside his leather jacket he produced a slip of paper which he opened and read, "_The Prince has his Detectives on a special assignment that will put them hands-on with the situation. Should be noted that they have felt a much stronger presence with the last two that disappeared._" Second Demon looked up and eyed the client. "One of yours?" he grunted.

Nightfire nodded, smirking underneath her hood. "All part of the grand scheme," she said coldly.  
First Demon stirred. "The grand scheme?" he repeated warily.

Nightfire abruptly got to her feet before piercing the two demons with her eyes. She could see them visibly freeze up with ill foreboding. "A grand scheme that does not concern you both in the whole except for this one little part," hissed Nightfire. "Just do what I tell you and you will be rewarded. . . . _handsomely_. Everything must go according to plan. The Detectives must never figure out that we collaborated. _Never_."

* * *

Her old feudal-style home in the most remote part of the Human World was still standing. It was still how she had left it four years before when she had brought the ice apparition Yukina to it. Yet the small building was in disrepair with wooden planks in some places in dire need of fixing and the white paint on the outside walls was faded. The wooden posts that elevated the house were no longer sturdy; the posts on the left side were slightly more sunken into the ground than the right.

Nightfire couldn't look more than a few seconds at her old home before she turned tore her dark brown eyes away from the painful sight. Without warning, a thousand memories and thoughts flooded into her already chaotic mind. Nightfire shut her eyes tight for a moment, and when she opened them again, both her pale hands held twin fire orbs that burned the tears angrily running down her face than her palms. With a scream, Nightfire threw the orbs at the house, conjuring more and throwing them until a huge inferno stood before her. The white walls became scorched black and the once sturdy wooden posts collapsed, taking down the building with a gigantic crash.

Nightfire turned her back on the wreckage while an icy aloofness enveloped her. She looked up at the full luminous moon with dark brown eyes. The black smoke coming from behind her was beginning to cast an ugly curtain between her and the moon.

"Why does he persist in trying to befriend me?" Nightfire softly asked herself. Her thoughts were of course now on Tenchi Masaki. Nightfire grunted as she pushed her hood back and tossed her long hair behind her. "He will be the death of himself," she said in cold finality.

* * *

"Awright Kurama, what's this about?" demanded Yusuke Uremeshi as he silently slid his bedroom door shut behind him. His mother was currently passed out in the living room and nothing would wake her up any time soon. From the looks of it as Yusuke briefly took a look around the room, Kuwabara, sitting with his back against the end of the bed, was about to join Yusuke's mother in dream land.

Kurama turned away from the quiet conversation he had been having with Hiei next to the open window. Normally he would have been profusely apologetic at making everyone meet at Yusuke's home without earlier notice and at the dead of night, but not tonight. His handsome facial features were set and determined as he addressed the whole group.

"I'm quite sorry to have disturbed you all this late at night, but this assignment can't wait," he began quietly. He shifted so that his back was to Hiei as he addressed Yusuke and Kuwabara. "Koenma gave us a new assignment that involves finding out why there have been demonic disappearances near the Asahikawa High School."

Yusuke raised an eyebrow skeptically as Kuwabara only yawned loudly on the floor between them. "And I thought that it was a good thing that demons are disappearing," he commented sarcastically.

"Yes, that's true, but Koenma is particularly concerned about the third demonic presence that his spies had sensed." Kurama's face darkened ominously. "This third demon had an aura that far exceeded the other two - an A class demon, as was reported," he added.

And just like that, the interest in the room picked up by not only the two humans in front of Kurama but also by Hiei behind him.

"Wait, how can an A class demon get into the Human World?" Yusuke demanded quizzically.

"Yeah, I thought demons that strong can't pass through any portals from Demon World into the Human World!" exclaimed Kuwabara, now wide awake and slightly anxious.

"So did Koenma," said Kurama.

"So then what is this brilliant plan that the brat wants us to do?" Hiei grunted with a bite of impatience and anger.

Kurama briefly looked over his shoulder at Hiei and quietly said, "It's not 'us' that's doing this assignment, Hiei. Rather, it's Yusuke, Kuwabara, and I that are going to be actively participating in it."

"Huh?" Kuwabara and Yusuke simultaneously said.

Kurama titled his head back and began to slowly rub the back of his neck.

This will take a while.


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm sorry."

Mia only responded by slightly tilting her stonily emotionless face away from the boy towering over her sitting form, blocking the noon sun's rays from reaching her. She believed her gesture to show that she didn't want anything to do with him. However, Tenchi regarded her movement as a sign to continue.

"I shouldn't have gotten into your personal space yesterday without your permission. I didn't mean to offend you when I commented that you seemed hungry. _Gomen nasai_."

Mia knew he wouldn't stop so she snapped her eyes open and hissed, "What part of 'leave me alone' don't you comprehend?"

Tenchi bowed his head subserviently. "I only wished to apologize, Mia-san," he said timidly and in an almost hurt tone. He reminded Mia of a puppy that had once tried to lick her hand after it peed in front of her, but in her anger she had slapped it. However, just like that time, Mia felt no remorse for hurting this pathetic boy's feelings. For once, Mia's rage had cowed Tenchi Masaki into talking to her with slight open fear and great caution.

This and the fact that he was still standing before her angered her even further.

"So you have!" snapped Mia. She pointed towards the exit door. "Now leave me!"

The intense and almost deadly look in her dark brown eyes frightened Tenchi. He almost lifted his foot to obey her, but then he looked more deeply into her eyes, noticing a difference. Once the depths of her eyes had looked almost deadened and full of pure hate, now her eyes looked more alive. Albeit, they were still full of hate but they seemed as if life was growing back within them. They were like a dying flame that was being slowly fed back to life. This intrigued Tenchi so much that he stopped his foot from lifting and slowly sank onto the concrete ground in front of Mia, never wavering his gaze from her eyes.

Astonishment swooped down on Mia's harsh features for only a moment before she suddenly jumped to her feet. Her whole body was trembling with greatly suppressed rage. She didn't like how this boy stared silently into her eyes as if they were windows - as if he was an intruder; which he really was. He was unconsciously forcing himself into Mia's business, into her life. What if he were to succeed and then try to force himself into the place inside of her that which she had vowed four years ago no one would ever occupy ever again?

The mere thought unsettled her. She was harshly shouting, "What do you _want_ from me?"

Tenchi slowly blinked as if he had been in a trance. The fog in his head cleared up quickly. He was acutely aware of Mia Yakitoshi standing before him with a murderous glare in her eyes, shouting at him.

"I just thought you needed someone," he paused before slowly adding, "to be your friend."

Mia pierced him with a cold look that could have frozen Hell over. It certainly did freeze Tenchi's insides. In an equally chilly tone, she said, "I don't _need_ friends." A disgusted look crossed her visage. "When have I _ever_ asked you to be my friend? Never!"

Despite the enraged young woman slightly towering over his body still sitting on the concrete floor, Tenchi managed to smile sadly at her. She didn't know it, but Tenchi saw a girl who really did need someone. Finally he said, "You might not need friends, but you _do_ need someone to care about you."

Mia jerked her head back as if she had been struck by the simplicity of his honest words. She began to take faltering steps away from him as if he had a disease until her back hit the iron fence surrounding the boundary of the roof. Her chest began to move up and down faster and faster to match her erratic breathing. She felt as if there was something inside her chest trying to claw itself out. She painfully slid onto the ground in front of Tenchi.

They stared at each other silently.

* * *

Weeks began to pass. Days were no more than blurs with small various happenings. Winter turned into spring. Christmas passed without Mia's acknowledgment, but the New Years did pick up her spirits slightly. She could feel it deep inside her when the clock struck down the old year. This was going to be a new year, a different year than the other four.

Yet these weren't the only things that were changing.

Something had changed between Mia and Tenchi that day on the roof. Mia couldn't quite comprehend it herself, but she did have a suspicion, an almost omniscient feeling, that nothing good would come from Tenchi getting into her world.

Tenchi never stopped talking to her or going up to the roof each lunch hour to share his homemade food with her. He acted as if Mia had accepted him as her friend, which she definitely did not. Yet he sometimes made it a point to carefully ask her to follow the rules better (or at least attend the morning auditorium assembly). Though none of these changed Mia's ways for the better, indeed she merely got nastier; to Mia's utmost surprise, Tenchi was beginning to grow on her. By the end of January, she was actually tolerating him to some extent.

While all this was happening, talk about her, and now about Tenchi, began to steadily grow. All the students were quite baffled as to why one of the most popular and most sought after boys would willingly want to be friends with the disagreeably unpleasant Mia Yakitoshi. If he thought to make her a more likeable person to be around, it was not working. Actually, she seemed more reclusive and ruder to anyone else that tried to get near her which fed to some certain suspicions.

"Um, Mia?" Maya Lain hesitantly asked one day during their P.E. class. The whole class was outside wearing their P.E. uniform. Each student was holding a light bamboo-made kendo training sword. The teacher had separated the boys from the girls and everyone was supposed to take a partner and practice sparring for the period.

Almost unfortunately for Mia, but mostly for the other girl, only Maya Lain had been daring enough to take her as a partner.

"What is it?" Mia growled as she effortlessly stepped away from Maya's pathetic thrust towards her stomach. She spun around so that she was behind the girl and bopped her hard on the back of the head to show her annoyance.

Rubbing her head, Maya turned around to face her as they began to square off again. "Well," she began, choosing her words very carefully lest she suffer more pain, "I wanted to know for a while. . . ." She lowered her training sword and looked at Mia thoughtfully.

"Well?" Mia snapped irritably, her patience wearing thin.

"Do you like Tenchi Masaki?" Maya suddenly blurted out. Shock registered on her features as her eyes widened at her own audacity, but she didn't have time to comprehend her own sudden boldness because Mia was now quickly attacking her with fierceness. Maya was barely able to keep up.

"You _dare_ ask me such a stupid question?" Mia hissed as their bamboo swords locked and she pressed them closer to her struggling partner. "What, _baka mi dai_, gave you the idea that I would harbor any feelings for that simpleton?!" Mia's rage flared, and with an almighty push onto the swords, she sent Maya flying back where she landed on the ground. Their classmates around them stopped sparring and were staring at the pair with apprehension and fear.

Mia began to menacingly advance on Maya and the latter quickly scrambled onto her feet and backed away. "_G-Gomen nasai_!" Mia apologized profusely.

Mia hadn't been the only one who was confronted by curious peers.

A few days after the little P.E. incident, Tenchi felt himself being surrounded from behind as he was bending down in his locker after school. He quickly stood up straight and turned around to come face to face with Toguri and a few of his friends. They were all surrounding him in a half-circle with his back to his open locker.

Tenchi tilted his head to the side in curiosity and said, "Hey guys, what's up?" Unconsciously, he reached up to his head and began to twirl his hair tail.

Toguri walked up next to Tenchi and threw an arm companionably around Tenchi's neck. "Say Tenchi, did ya hear about what happened to Maya Lain on Tuesday when she was partnered with your _friend_ Mia Yakitoshi?" Toguri asked. Around them, his friends were smiling with a little bit of nervousness.

The smile on Tenchi's face faltered and he shifted uncomfortably under Toguri's arm. "Uh, yeah I did," Tenchi said. "But I heard that Maya had said something offensive to Mia, so I wouldn't really blame her but," he quickly added seeing the stunned looks on his classmates, "that still doesn't give Mia the right to push Maya to the ground."

The boys relaxed and their smiles were back. Except for one.

Tenchi was tugged closer to Toguri, and when he looked at the other boy's face, Tenchi could see the seriousness in his eyes.

"Look Tenchi," Toguri began, "I don't think it's best if ya keep hanging around with that girl. I mean, it's noble and all of you to try to make friends with her, but she's just a _lost cause_," he added with heavy emphasis. All around them, Toguri's friends were nodding in agreement.

Tenchi's gut clenched painfully in anger, but he prudently kept quiet as Toguri continued.

"It's obvious she's just playin' you, man! We all know you like her like that and all, but it's obvious she hates your guts!"

Tenchi's eyes widened, stunned. "Wait, what?" he suddenly exclaimed. This outburst made Toguri and his friends jump away from him in surprise. "I don't like Mia like that!" Tenchi continued. "We are only friends!"

Toguri smiled, shaking off his surprise. "Suuure, Mr. Prez," he said humorously. "Like we don't all know that the _only_ reason you'd be willing to spend all your time with Mia Yakitoshi and make her more likable is because you _don't_ secretly like her." He began to laugh along with his friends, but without warning, he grabbed in the front by his collar by none other than Tenchi. "Whoa!" Toguri exclaimed as he wrapped his hands around Tenchi's wrist. "Let go of me!"

Tenchi blinked, astonished. He let go of Toguri and watched as the boy backed into his friends while coughing exaggeratedly. For once since he was a little boy, Tenchi had let his anger get the best of him and had almost harmed a fellow peer. He felt sick to his stomach now, even more when Toguri turned accusing eyes towards him.

"She's turning you into her!" he shouted. With a nod, he and his friends walked away from Tenchi, leaving a newcomer standing a few feet away from him. She had seen this whole exchange from her own open locker. She softly closed her door and quietly walked up to the stunned boy until she stood in front of him.

"Are you all right?" Maya Lain asked Tenchi gently.

Tenchi quickly turned away from her, embarrassed and feeling a little worse now. He quickly shut his locker with a bang, evidence of his frustration and confusion. When he turned back around, Maya was still standing there, looking up at him curiously and concernedly. He remembered that she had asked him a question and he wondered if it was too late to answer.

But Maya took that concern away from him. "Do you have any plans this afternoon?" she asked in her dreamy tone, the one that made her sound like she was always surprised.

Tenchi began to twirl his hair tail again, this time nervously. "I was, uh, thinking about hanging out at the arcade. You see, I'm gonna meet a friend from Meiou High School, and I was thinking about. . . ." Tenchi trailed off awkwardly with a small tint on his cheeks.

Maya smiled serenely. "You were thinking about asking Mia to come with you, perhaps?" she finished for him as if she had already known it.

Now that she had voiced it out loud, Tenchi could see how ridiculous it seemed. Mia was finally starting to get comfortable around him, but that didn't mean she'd be willing to hang out with him like real friends did.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Maya said as she saw the sad look on his face. "I didn't mean to pry."

Tenchi let his hand drop from his hair tail and smiled half-heartedly. "No, it's okay. You helped me realize that the idea was stupid." Tenchi adjusted the straps on his backpack and looked at Maya again. He noticed she had a contemplative look. "Well, bye." Tenchi began to walk away, but Maya called out to him.

"Tenchi, wait!" He stopped and waited until she was in front of him again. "I could help you convince her to come with you!" Maya said happily.

Tenchi was taken aback. "Well, I don't know," he said. He was thinking more specifically about what Mia did to Maya on Tuesday.

Apparently Maya was thinking the same thing, but instead of feeling nervous like Tenchi was, she smiled and shook her head. "I was prying where I shouldn't have," she said simply. "I don't blame her." Maya took Tenchi's arm and pulled him towards the stairs. "Let's go find her!"

* * *

"Mia!"

Mia Yakitoshi froze just outside the metal front gates and gritted her teeth. _What now?_ she thought darkly. Aren't school hours enough for him? Mia turned sharply on her heels and came face to face with not only Tenchi Masaki but Maya Lain as well. But without so much as a glance to the other girl, Mia addressed Tenchi with her biting tone. "What do you want?" she snarled.

While Maya took a careful step back, Tenchi merely smiled. "Want to come with me and Maya to the arcade?" he asked hopefully. "I'm meeting a friend from Meiou there."

Although she didn't show it, Mia was intrigued by this seemingly small information. "What is this boy's name?" she asked carelessly.

Tenchi took this as a sign of consideration and his shoulders relaxed. "Suichi," he said enthusiastically. "Suichi Minamino."

Maya Lain now looked curious and even a little excited. "Ooh, I know him! He's the class president of his high school! I used to go to grade school with him, too." Her excitement drained away when Mia Yakitoshi slowly turned her attention towards her.

"Oh really?" she said softly. Mia thought hard for a minute before she turned to Tenchi again. "All right, I'll come," she conceded with a sigh, but inside her stomach was bubbling with her own excitement.

So instead of going back home, she walked behind Maya and Tenchi towards the Star-Crossed Arcade in the city. It was not that far from her apartment, actually. Tenchi and Maya kept a steady stream of conversation while Mia was lost in her own thoughts.

The Star-Crossed Arcade was two stories high. That was because the second floor was mostly devoted to fast food and a karaoke bar. But the whole first floor was all about video games.

Mia nearly bumped into Tenchi's broad back for the teen had suddenly stopped just inside the arcade and got on his tip-toes, craning his neck. "Watch it, _baka_," she snapped.

Tenchi looked over his shoulder at her apologetically. "Oops, sorry," he said. He snapped his head back to the front and waved. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey Suichi!" he called across the loud arcade. "Over here!"

"Tenchi!"

There he was, looking just as she had seen him the last time they were together, in that ghost town with slight differences. He looked even more mature and his long red hair was a little bit longer. He had chosen to tie it back, letting his side bangs hang on either side of his still-handsome face. He was wearing the Meiou school uniform; that hadn't changed about him, nor did his emerald green eyes which were now alight with curiosity as Tenchi moved to the side and introduced him to Mia.

Kurama's eyebrows involuntarily rose as he stared down at this dark girl Tenchi had seemed like he had pulled out of thin air. She was almost as tall as Yusuke with long raven black hair that reached down to her hips. Choppy bangs fell into her eyes. Those pair of cold dark brown eyes met his and he painfully thought of another pair of eyes almost like these orbs. However, these eyes looked almost deadened, as if life had been taken away from them. What piqued Kurama's interest the most was the three inch scar running down her left eye.

Kurama slowly stretched his hand in front of him and forced himself to smile even though his senses were ringing warning bells. "How do you do?" he asked politely.

Despite how Mia really wanted to claw out his eyes and then rip his head off, she kept herself aloof and calm. She was aware he had been staring briefly at her scar. Mia wanted to give him one also. She looked at him with considered calculation before coolly answering, "I have been better." She kept her hands firmly at her sides.

And Kurama believed her as he lowered his hand. He turned to Tenchi, who had been watching the exchange with slight apprehension in his eyes. Kurama smiled warmly to show his friend that he didn't mind this girl's anti-social attitude. "So this is the friend you've been telling me about," Kurama said conversationally. He couldn't help feeling slightly uneasy about this Mia Yakitoshi. Her aura was different. It was not like Tenchi's, which was quite powerful but still human. Hers was darker, more powerful.

Tenchi smiled back in relief and nodded. He looked to the side past Mia and clapped a hand over his forehead. "Oh man, sorry Maya! Suichi, I'd also like you to meet another friend of mine, Maya Lain," he said. "Apparently you guys all ready know each other."

Kurama's eyes widened in surprise at the same time as his stomach began to squirm uncomfortably when he turned to the familiar girl who he had not seen since grade school. "Yes, we do," he found himself saying as he stared at her. She had really changed since they were kids. Maya was slightly taller than Mia Yakitoshi, and although she didn't look as fit or well muscle-toned as Mia, she was still attractive in a quiet way. Maya had mousy-brown hair that reached down to her chin except a long lock hanging down the left side of her round face that was tied with two rubber bands. Like the dark girl beside her, Kurama was most interested in Maya's light brown eyes which had a curiously lost look.

Maya cocked her head to the side considering him, although in a much friendlier sense than when Mia had been considering him. A small shy smile slowly spread across her face and she held out her hand to him. "It's nice to see you again, Suichi Minamino," she said pleasantly, softly.

As if in a trance, Kurama reached for her hand. When his fingers closed around hers, it was as if an electric jolt had passed between them so that he quickly let go. He nodded distantly at Maya. Quite frankly, he was numb with shock; so shocked, in fact, that he never saw the flit of interest in Mia's eyes as she carefully watched the two. If Kurama had been paying better attention, he would have felt a shift in power around this girl.

_What are you hiding, Kurama?_ Mia hungrily wondered as the said boy quickly turned his back on Maya and he and Tenchi led the girls towards the stairs leading up to the second floor. Licking her lips like a cat about to eat a bird, Mia began to concentrate. Psychically, she reached carefully into Kurama's mind and was ecstatic to find out that it was much unguarded at the moment because of his small and unexpected encounter with this childhood acquaintance. _But is she_ really _just a mere acquaintance?_ Mia questioned. With great caution so that he could not sense her intrusion, Mia broke into his early childhood memories, especially some that concerned a younger, more happier version of the girl walking right next to her. What Mia saw was more than she had ever hoped for. It was very hard to suppress a smirk as she pulled out unnoticed from Kurama's mind.

_His Achilles' heel. Perfect._

They had stepped off the stairs and onto the second floor, which was less crowded than the first floor.

"I've brought a few friends as well, if you don't mind," Kurama was saying as he motioned them to follow him towards the karaoke bar.

"Oh no, not at all," Tenchi laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "I didn't tell you I was bringing friends either."

Kurama walked up to a boy in a green school uniform which looked plain compared to his own and tapped him on the shoulder. "Yusuke, there are some people I'd like you, Kuwabara, and Hiei to meet," Kurama said. He looked around, not seeing the other two he had just mentioned and then asked for them.

Yusuke turned around. "Kuwabara and Hiei are buying ice cream for Hiei, you know," he trailed off, rolling his chocolate brown eyes at their friend's obsession with the cold treat. He looked past Kurama and eyed the other three that had accompanied him. His eyes stopped on Mia for a hard moment just as Kurama had done, staring particularly at the three inch scar. Then a laid back grin spread across his face and he said, "Hello."

While Tenchi and Maya greeted him, Mia had frozen up. She had spotted two other familiar people walking towards them. In particular was a person that made her insides freeze up and her heart burn, holding an ice cream cone.

"Hey Kur-uh, I mean Suichi!" Kuwabara exclaimed. His eyes swept over the three new faces and completely froze as he made eye contact with a pair of deadened dark brown eyes. Suddenly he began to shiver as a bad vibe crashed through him like a wave, and it didn't have anything to do with the scar running down her left eye. "Whoa!" he accidentally shouted out loud. Immediately seeing his error, he added, but a little weakly, "You're hot!" This girl gave him a glare so dark and sinister that Kuwabara visibly shrank back. His sixth sense was acting crazy over this one girl.

Yusuke, however, didn't notice this. "Man Kuwabara, you better watch out! I bet she could take you!" he snickered.

_To Hell, I would_, Mia thought hatefully. She as well as everyone in their group heard a loud splattering noise that came from beside Kuwabara and slowly turned towards the spot.

Hiei barely registered that he no longer held his ice cream cone or that there was anyone else in the room. All he could see was this girl. His breath slammed in his lungs. He could actually understand why Kuwabara had reacted as he had upon setting eyes on her. There was something about this girl, about the way her deadened eyes looked at him, that sent his senses reeling in both familiar and unfamiliar ways. There was an aura about her that was very strange, yet reminded him painfully of Amaya for some reason.

Again, Mia felt like she was being both frozen and burned as she stared into those familiar crimson red eyes that have been haunting her for the last four years. While normally they would have been filled to the brim with dark secrets and inner turmoil, now Hiei's eyes were wide with surprise and maybe even shock. Mia surveyed him with more care than she had done with Kurama.

Honestly on the whole, almost nothing had changed with Hiei. He was still short, where she had grown a few inches; his hair still stuck up, whereas hers had grown longer. She knew that like Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara that he was also looking at her scar, although less noticeably. What had really changed about Hiei were his eyes. His eyes now held a sort of pain and even some regret.

_Good_, Mia thought viciously as her hands clenched together tightly so that her knuckles turned white. I will make him, make all of them pay. She had not been expecting any of this - that _all of them_ would be here and she would be confronting them so _soon_. And she could see it in Hiei's eyes that he could feel some sort of familiarity from her aura. Tearing her eyes away from Hiei's, she calmly and coolly addressed Tenchi, "I have to go. I just remembered I have a previous engagement this afternoon."

Tenchi's face fell. He had watched the reactions of first Suichi's and then his friends'. To him, Mia felt intimidated by it all, especially since they all stared at her scar. Although he wanted for her to stay and possibly get to know them better (and maybe make more friends), he nodded sympathetically. "I'll see you at school then," he said, trying to hide his disappointment.

With a curt nod to him, and only him, she swept past Kuwabara, who quickly inched away as she passed, and Hiei, who merely stared at her with the same hardness that both Kurama and Yusuke had looked at her with until she disappeared down the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6 Kurama's Guilt

It didn't take long for everyone else to leave after the very strange and mysterious Mia Yakitoshi had. When they had turned their attentions back to themselves, it was right away noticed that Hiei had mysteriously disappeared, leaving only a melting pool of ice cream in his place.

Yusuke, finally noticing the shaky state his best friend was in, decided it was also time for him and Kuwabara to leave. This left only Kurama, Tenchi, and Maya.

"I'm sorry about my friends," Kurama kept apologizing profusely as they settled into an empty booth. But in fact, Kurama really wanted to leave as well. Not only did he want to think about the girl with the deadened eyes, but he also wanted to get as far away from Maya Lain as he could. A terrible guilty feeling hit him, but it wasn't only about wanting to stay away from this sweet girl of his childhood. It was _much_ deeper than that. So it was a relief that after an hour of talking about the upcoming Spring Blossom Festival happening at Asahikawa High School that Tenchi decided that it was late. He needed to be home for his elderly grandfather.

"I'll talk more with you about the Festival later, right?" Tenchi asked Kurama as they were leaving through the entrance of the Star-Crossed Arcade.

Kurama nodded and smiled, acutely aware that Maya was standing quite close to him. With his demonic senses, he could smell her shampoo. It smelled like kiwi.

Tenchi waved to them and began to walk away. "I'll see you on Monday, Maya!" he called.

And this made it plainly aware to Kurama that he and Maya were standing next to each other. Alone. Without meeting her eyes, Kurama said goodbye and began to walk the opposite direction Tenchi had went, but Maya quickly caught up to him a moment later.

"I'm going this way as well," she said cheerfully. "We can walk together for a while. I haven't seen you in a long time."

Kurama wordlessly nodded and smiled half-heartedly down at her. _She doesn't remember_, he thought half in relief and half sadly.

They silently walked down the streets for a while, neither talking to the other. However, Maya didn't seem to mind for she hummed softly and contentedly underneath her breath. From time to time, their arms brushed against each other as they walked. Her head just barely reached his chin.  
They crossed a fork in the sidewalk. One was going deeper into the city and the other was going off into a more suburban setting. Kurama walked closer to the one going into the suburbs before turning around to face Maya. He noticed that she was softly chewing her upper lip with a dreamy yet contemplative look in her lost eyes.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked in spite of himself.

Maya slowly shook her head. She took a deep breath before looking deeper into his emerald eyes. She almost felt like she could drown in them. "It seems like we were once closer," she suddenly said.

Kurama started. "Pardon?" he asked nervously.

Maya nodded and took a step closer towards him. "I remember you in grade school. . . . seeing you and being in the same class, but other than that, I can't remember ever being near you or talking to you. But for some reason, I feel like I've really _known_ you before." Maya laughed and lightly hit her head. "I'm sorry, Suichi. I must be imagining things," she said apologetically. But in fact, there was a familiar tugging feeling in the back of her head that told her that she wasn't imagining and that Suichi Minamino was more familiar to her than she knew right now.

Her carelessness, the way she laughed, Kurama couldn't help smiling. His earlier feelings of guilt and the need to get away from her were diminished. He stuck out his hand. "Well, this is goodbye until we meet again," he said warmly.

Maya came closer to him and took his hand. There was no electric jolt this time, but Maya could sense something from him. She didn't know what it was, but it gave her the same weird feeling she got when she was around Mia. It made her a little apprehensive, but unlike with Mia, this feeling from Suichi also made her heart peacefully still in her chest. Maya sniffed. "You smell nice," she said quietly as their hands parted.

However, Kurama heard her as if she had shouted it and felt an invisible icy hand grip his insides as a distant childhood memory of him carrying this same girl on his back, giving her dream pollen to make her forget that they had known each other more than just being classmates, that he had rescued her from a demon beforehand, and that she had loved him.

Even after all those years, he still had feelings for her. But for fear that her sixth sense might make her remember these lost memories, he'd protect her once more by staying away.


	7. Chapter 7

When Mia saw Tenchi again at school, he looked as if his weekend had been rough. He was slightly pale in a sickly way. There were faint dark circles underneath his tired puppy brown eyes. He carried himself with a slump on his back, as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Man Masaki, what happened to you?" Toguri asked with concern as Tenchi passed him. The incident after school last Friday was long forgotten by him.

Tenchi plunked heavily into his seat in front of Mia and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "Gramps wasn't feeling well the whole weekend. I've been taking care of him along with managing the temple in his place," he explained. It was common knowledge that Tenchi lived with his aging grandfather, Yosho Masaki, in the forested outskirts surrounding the suburbs where his grandfather oversaw the temple, the Masaki Shrine, close to their home.

For the rest of the day, Tenchi took solace in Mia. He was grateful she wasn't one to pry about what was wrong with him or give him condolences as everyone else did when he explained about his grandfather's condition. And while his explanations did suggest his grandfather was doing better, it was the exact opposite. In fact, that Friday when he had come home, it was to immediately discover his grandfather lying unconscious in the temple. When his grandfather had come around, he had explained feebly to his worried grandson that a sharp pain in his head had caused him to black out. All weekend, the old temple priest had to stay in bed, but there had been no signs of improvement.

All this Tenchi eventually confessed to Mia as they sat in their usual spot on the roof, sharing his lunch.

Mia looked witheringly at this pathetic boy sitting besides her staring unfocusedly at the shrimp tempura he held between his chopsticks. She decided that her appetite was lost. Mia put her chopsticks on the ground next to his bento box.

Tenchi looked at her then. "Is there something wrong?" he asked with concern.

"Of course," Mia said so coldly that Tenchi dropped his chopsticks in surprise. "I see before me a small child sniveling over a man who's obviously going to die very soon."

Tenchi's lower jaw sagged a few inches. He stared at Mia, eyes wide with hurt and shock. "But - But . . . he can't - I mean, I know he's old and all," Tenchi gasped. How could she be so blunt and cruel?

Mia tossed her head. "Stop kidding yourself," she snapped. "He's an old and feeble man whose prime has been long gone like a summer storm. It's time for him to move over for those younger and stronger that he."

To Mia's amusement and somewhat amazement, Tenchi suddenly leaped to his feet, knocking over the food left over in the process. He towered over Mia's stoic form. His voice as well as his body trembled with anger, "Y-You don't have the _right_ to say that about my grandfather, Mia 

Yakitoshi! He might be physically weak and old, but inside he has always been young and strong. He will pull through!" Then his expression changed to hurt when Mia's distant look didn't change one bit. "I thought you cared about me," he said timidly.

Now Mia reacted. "_Me_ care about _you_?" Mia shouted incredulously. "Since when have I ever given any implication that I cared about you?" With some satisfaction, Mia watched as Tenchi gave her one last hurtful look before turning away from her and leaving.

But if Mia thought this was the only entertaining highlight of her the day, she was proved very wrong after school when the four people she had least expected to see so soon appeared before her on her way home.

Although it was spiced up the tension felt between the two groups a bit more if Mia had played the scared, innocent girl card, she had already given them impression that she was not some timid girl like Maya Lain. So despite the panic running deep through her bloodstream, she stood her ground and demanded they move out of her way. The river under the bridge they stood on rushed past them.

Kurama stepped up and smiled friendly at her. "_Konichiwa_, Mia Yakitoshi-san," he greeted her formally and even inclined his head. "My friends and I were wondering if we could walk you home."

Mia's eyes narrowed warily at all of them. Even a fool would never fall for those words. "'Walk you home'?" she repeated suspiciously. "And to what do I owe you the _pleasure_ of my company so that you had to travel all the way to my school from your respective two just so that you could walk me home?" she cynically asked.

All four boys exchanged quick looks, neither one wanting to be the one to confront her with the question burning in all of their minds.

Mia's suspicions made her grow more impatient as the seconds ticked by. "What do you want with me? I have not the time for silly games," she snarled. "I need to get home."

Yusuke bravely stepped forward. He clearly looked angered about something. "Silly games? You're the one playing silly games by hiding, Amaya!" he shouted.

While she did feel electrifying shock course through her body, Mia expertly covered it up by raising her eyebrows skeptically. "What are you stupidly babbling about, _baka mi dai_?" she demanded furiously. "My name is Mia Yakitoshi. _Not anything else_. And I don't hide from anyone, least of all you pathetic four! If you have a problem with it, speak now or forever hold you silence, and be quick, for I have no time for _bakas_ that waste my life."

Kurama gave Hiei a side-glance, emerald eyes glinting. Hiei nodded imperceptibly before he concentrated his Jagan Eye to look into this girl's mind. Yet to his great surprise, he was met with an impenetrable wall in her mind.

Mia immediately felt his presence in her mind. She spun to face Hiei and pointed accusingly at him. "What are you doing?" she yelled, using her innocent card at last, perfecting it with a tone of panic and confusion. "How are you doing that?" Mia looked wildly into the four boys' stunned faces. Her eyes widened with fear and anger. "Stay away from me!" she cried before she plunged through them and left them there.

While she did manage to throw them off her scent for the moment with her performance, Mia's heart still hammered as she slammed her apartment door shut behind her. She leaned back heavily on the door and caught her breath. That was very close. She knew it had to be her attitude, but her aura could have something to do with it as well. "_Shimotta_," Mia cursed under her breath. There was no other choice, Mia thought as she pushed off the door. She needed to pretend to open up more. But where to start?

Her eyes fell upon the phone, whose little red light blinked to indicate someone had called and left her a message. Wondering who would bother to call her, Mia pressed the play button.  
Tenchi's voice filled the silent room, strained and rushed.

"_Mia, my grandfather's being taken to the hospital. The pain in his head came back and is much worse so I'm going with him to make sure he'll be all right. Listen, I was going to meet Suichi Minamino at the Star-Crossed Arcade this afternoon, but I can't now. Please, _please_ go in my place! He's just going to give you a folder - oh Mia _" Here, Tenchi sounded almost as if he were crying. "_Mia, you were right. Gr-Gramps is going to die soon. I can feel it. I'm sorry. I have to go. Please meet Suichi at the arcade at five_."

The message ended, leaving Mia's ears pounding with rushing blood and her heart pounding like a drum. A thousand thoughts flew in her head until two stuck out as clear as day: she could not meet up with Suichi. She needed to get to the hospital. Leaving her things on the counter, she shadowed to the hospital using Tenchi's spirit energy as her guide. She appeared in the large waiting room unnoticed and immediately spotted Tenchi pacing nervously in front of a set of doors labeled "Emergency Room" above it.

As she watched the worry and grief on Tenchi's usually angelic and innocent face, Mia felt as if something deep inside her had suddenly woken up and was at that moment trying to rip out of her chest to get to Tenchi. Mia closed her eyes and took deep breaths to calm this strange feeling in her. Now she questioned why she was there in the first place. She could have simply stayed at home and let Kurama waiting at the arcade.

When she opened her eyes, she couldn't control her next words, "Stop moving and sit. You're making it worse than it all ready is."

Tenchi stumbled right in front of the doors at the familiar cold voice. As he righted himself, he stared dumbfounded at Mia for a moment before he rushed towards her with tears threatening to fall. "You came!" he gasped as he motioned to envelop her in a grateful hug.

However, Mia evaded him. Instead, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him roughly into the nearest chair. "Sit," she ordered sharply. "You'll do no one good if you worry yourself to death - even if you'll be able to accompany him to the other side," she added spitefully.

Although her words were harsh, Tenchi felt the flood of relief and thankfulness because in her own twisted way, Mia was showing that she did care for him; even if she didn't know it. "_Domo arigato_," he whispered as he slumped into the chair.

"Where are they keeping him?" Mia demanded to know.

Tenchi shut his eyes painfully. "He's in room 6B on the second floor, but they won't let anyone but doctors and nurses see him," he said mournfully. "He's in critical condition."

"I see," Mia murmured. She used her psychic powers and made him go to sleep, which was easy because of the condition he was in. Mia warily looked around to make sure no one was watching before she stepped into Tenchi's shadow and disappeared.

She reappeared on the second floor and began striding down the hall. She followed the room numbers until she found the door. She reached for the door knob.

"Miss, what are you doing here? This patient isn't allowed any visitors!"

Mia looked over her shoulder and sneered at the matronly nurse behind her. She carelessly waved her hand over her. A vacant look replaced the stern one on the nurse's face. With another wave, Mia sent the nurse walking away from her down the hallway. Before she could get interrupted again, Mia stepped into the room and locked the door behind her. She strode over to the curtains hiding Tenchi's grandfather and ripped them open. On the bed was a frail and sickly old man. Who knew that this was once a very powerful guardian of a Guarded Gate?

"Hn, pathetic weak humans," she said softly. She couldn't even believe why she was about to do what she was going to do. Yet she got this far. Mia closed her eyes and concentrated her powers. The windows beside the bed flew open and the wind swirled inside the room as she changed into her most powerful form. The monitors hooked up to Yosho Masaki beeped erratically and loudly, but Mia used her powers to sound-proof the door and then silenced the monitors. As the wind quieted down, Mia moved closer to Yosho's side and placed her pale hands over his heart. They began to glow black and red like her aura. Then his body began to glow with the same colors as well. Like a person pulled out of water, the old man gasped loudly and his eyes fluttered open. He caught a glimpse of a demonic woman with red and black eyes hovering over him before she passed her hand over him and he fell into a deep sleep.

Mia stepped away from the bed and powered down. Then she sensed him. Her head snapped up to the window and her eyes widened with shock. He was coming as quickly as he could to this spot. He had sensed her most powerful form because for that brief moment when she was healing Yosho Masaki, her guard had been down. Now she was weak from giving this old man some of her life aura to heal him.

Knowing the seconds were precious, Mia jumped into the nearest shadow just as a dark figure appeared crouched in the open window closest to the bed.

* * *

His crimson red eyes immediately pinpointed to the spot where the being with the powerful aura had been. They were not there anymore and he could not sense them either. Hiei cursed underneath his breath as his eyes landed on the old man lying on the hospital bed in front of him. Hiei cocked his head to the side curiously as he surveyed this human for a moment. He jumped off the window and took the clipboard hanging at the foot of the bed. It read Yosho Masaki.

Masaki. Hiei remembered the boy who was Kurama's friend from Asahikawa High. His eyes narrowed. What would a powerful demon want with this pathetic human? He looked like he was on his last lifeline. However, this was a half bad observation. Although this human looked like he was hanging on Death's finger, this man's spirit was still very alive.

A sudden ringing noise coming from Hiei's pocket cut through the air and nearly made him jump. He threw the clipboard on a table and took out the small pink compact communicator.

"What did you find?" Kurama immediately asked as soon as Hiei flipped the lid open.

"Nothing. They were gone before I came here," Hiei muttered. "But it was the same demon that the spies had sensed. It was very powerful." Hiei's face turned dark. "Kurama, the demon was in the room of Yosho Masaki."

Kurama took a sharp intake of breath at the last name. "Tenchi's grandfather?" he said softly. "But what could they want with him?" he voiced their question out loud.

"Who knows," Hiei said coldly. He was inwardly angry that he had this powerful being had slipped through his fingers. "Now that everything here is cleared, I'm leaving. Don't contact me unless it's something worthwhile." Hiei snapped the communicator and jumped out the window, but not without one last look at the old man sleeping deeply behind him.

_What did they want with you?_


	8. Chapter 8

"You look troubled."

Mia Yakitoshi's eyes slowly moved up from the page of the book she had been reading and pierced Tenchi Masaki's warm puppy brown eyes. It was plain that he was no longer that devastated and hysterical boy that she had last seen in the hospital waiting room after his grandfather had taken seriously ill yesterday. Rather, he was particularly jovial this morning.

Everyone had somehow heard about Yosho Masaki's collapse in the Masaki Shrine that led to his hospitalization, and so they had been prepared for a somber Tenchi. Instead, Tenchi surprised everyone but Mia by striding head high into their classroom with a wide smile on his angelic face. Even now as he spoke to her, their classmates were whispering and looking at Tenchi with confusion.

Mia inwardly smirked, knowing exactly why. On the outside, she narrowed her eyes at him and coldly retaliated by asking why he was so happy.

Tenchi stood up and sat down on his seat so his long legs straddled either side of it. He draped his arms over the wooden chair and smiled even wider. "Gramps made a full recovery!" he said enthusiastically. "His doctors said it was a miracle because before you came to the hospital, Gramps had been in critical condition - on the verge of dying, they said," he added quietly for only her to hear. Then he seemed to have remembered something. He sat up straighter in his seat and gave Mia a curious look. "Where _did_ you go after I fell asleep in the waiting room?" he asked her.

Mia rolled her eyes as if to say "you simpleton" and replied, "I left. Do you honestly think I would stick around to watch you sleep?"

Tenchi couldn't discern any meaning in Mia's stoic features, and so he was forced to leave the conversation at its end. However, when their teacher's back was turned to write something on the blackboard, Tenchi lightly threw a note over his shoulder.

After the note plopped onto her notebook, Mia gave the back of Tenchi's head a glare before she picked up the note.

It read, _Thank you for being there for me. You're a real friend, Mia._

Mia's eyes traveled repeatedly from the note to the back of Tenchi's head and back again as a thousand thoughts ran through her mind. "A real friend" he had called her. _No._ She was getting in too deep. Now as images of what happened in the hospital flashed through her mind, Mia knew that what she had done to Yosho Masaki was one of the worst decisions she could have made. She had drawn herself unintentionally closer to Tenchi because she had refused to meet Kurama at The Star-Crossed Arcade in Tenchi's place.

So Mia picked up her pencil, quickly scribbled something down, and then shoved the note down Tenchi's shirt.

When Tenchi got the note out of his shirt without the teacher noticing, he opened it swiftly behind the cover of his propped up book.

Underneath his previous message, there were three short words.

_I'm no friend._

* * *

"I don't think you mean that."

Mia kept walking through the main courtyard without looking back at Tenchi. "And why is that, pray tell?" she asked wryly.

Tenchi quickly sped up until he was striding next to Mia. For someone of her medium stature compared to his tall figure, she was quite a fast walker. Tenchi side-glanced at her and saw her pale face was perfectly emotionless, as if she didn't care what he thought. Realizing this, Tenchi's answer drifted from his lips. He abruptly stopped walking and firmly placed his hand on her shoulder before she could walk away from him.

Mia stopped walking, feeling her irritation rise. She looked over her shoulder at Tenchi, glaring warningly. "If you want to keep the use of your hand, _let go_," she growled.

Tenchi quickly obeyed and then rapidly invited her to come over to his house.

Mia slowly raised her eyebrow skeptically, the act slightly stretching out the two-inch long scar under her left eye. "Why would I want to come over your house, _baka_?" she rudely demanded. Mia was now infuriated by this boy. It was as if he went out of his way to throw her off. Tenchi had invited her many times in the past to go over his house, but he had a knack for springing the question in almost random moments.

Sensing the impending trouble, Tenchi slightly bent closer towards Mia so that his face was level with hers. He smiled very sweetly and pressed the palms of his hands in between their faces as if he were praying. "_Please_, Mia-chan," he implored.

Hearing the nickname, Mia couldn't help seeing a long distant memory flash through her mind and hearing another nickname, Ama-chan. She saw a large white tent and a cot in front of her. On top of the cot was a very injured teenage human boy with carrot-red hair that was staring up at her with beetle black eyes. "_You are such a careless_ baka," she was telling him.

"Mia?" Tenchi repeated her name. She was still looking at him, but it was as if she wasn't seeing him anymore. Her dark brown eyes had taken a far away kind of look. Tenchi slowly placed his hand on the girl's shoulder.

The pressure of his hand on her body plunged Mia back to the present. Glaring once more, she pressed her own two hands on his shoulders and heaved his away from her.

"Whoa!" Tenchi quickly bounced backwards as if he were on springs to keep from falling on his back. When he had righted himself, he faced Mia, but now with a good three feet of space between them. "What was that about?" The demand came more like a whine.

Mia lifted her hand and pointed at him as if to threaten him. "Don't _ever_ call me 'Mia-chan'," she told him. Her hand dropped and she turned her back on him. When it felt to Tenchi that she was once more going to leave him hanging there like she always did, Mia's calm voice drifted over to him.

"Well, aren't we going or not?"

Tenchi blinked for a few long moments as the question slowly gained some value in his mind. "You mean you want to go?" he asked stupidly.

Mia spun on her heel and placed her hands on her hips. She tossed her head impatiently.

Tenchi watched in fascination as her long raven black hair swirled around her body.

"Didn't I just say that when I asked aren't we going or not?" Mia snapped.

A smile cautiously spread across Tenchi's lips. Without wasting another second wondering why she accepted his offer, he bounded over to Mia just as she started walking towards their school's gated entrance.

Mia followed Tenchi through the suburbs where the majority of the Asahikawa students resided and deep into the woods behind the last houses. Neither of them talked through this journey, unless it was Tenchi who broke their silence by pointing out landmarks and the memories that had gone with them. Mia stayed silent the whole time.

She knew when they were nearing his home when the beaten path they had been walking on began to slope up a hill. At the end of this path was a crooked stone stairway leading higher up the hill with an old wooden gate in front of this stairway. Tenchi opened the gate and let her enter first before he closed to gate behind them and motioned her to follow him up the stairway. The ground leveled off at the top to a vast track of grassland and cherry blossom trees. In the distance, a two story feudal-looking home was nestled between two particularly large twisted trees.

The scent of the cherry blossoms was so overwhelming and yet very comforting that Mia briefly closed her eyes and stood still, letting the smell calm her as nothing had done in a long time. She felt Tenchi's hand on her elbow, but this time Mia merely stepped away and followed him towards his home.

As they drew nearer, Mia now noticed that some of the surrounding cherry blossom trees were in a small circular formation in front of Tenchi's home. The ground between these trees was worn.

"We use this spot so that Gramps can teach me kendo," Tenchi answered for her when he noticed her interest.

Mia nodded as they briefly stopped in front of the tall iron gateway. This gateway was connected to the thick concrete fence that ran the perimeter of Tenchi's house. Tenchi bended over the padlock on the gateway, puzzled. "Why did Gramps lock the gates?" he wondered.

"Tenchi! Is that you?"

When the two teenagers turned to the right where the voice had come from, Mia now noticed another beaten path that led off past more cherry blossoms. Coming down this path with a knobby cane in hand was a tall old man who Mia recognized as Yosho Masaki.

Tenchi waved to his grandfather. "Gramps, were you checking the temple?" Tenchi shouted.

Yosho slowly shook his head at the worried tone in his grandson's voice. His long grey hair, tied up in a loose ponytail, snapped left and right behind him like a whip. The doctors had ordered Yosho to stay in bed to help him recover faster, but Yosho was a stubborn man. At three quarters to a century, Yosho Masaki had the resemblance of a thin tree, but unlike the two twisted trees standing beside his home like two sentries, he stood tall and proud. It was apparent that the hospitalization made him look more frail, but anyone looked past the thin square frames of his glasses could see the energy of youth still in his puppy brown eyes, so like his grandson's.

Right now as he stopped in front of Tenchi, those eyes zeroed in on Mia. As if she were being x-rayed, Mia stiffened as those eyes looked her up and down with emotionless deliberation. But then, Yosho seemed to find Mia satisfactory as warmth suddenly flooded into those eyes and a smile crept over his thin lips. He held out a calloused hand to her.

"Mia Yakitoshi, am I correct?" he asked politely as they briefly shook hands. If he thought her rude as she quickly yanked her hand out of his, his face or manners did not show it.

"Very," she answered in a clipped tone. "I suppose Tenchi's talked about me." This was a flat statement. She didn't need Yosho's answer because the way Tenchi was now nervously twirling his hair tail told her everything.

Yosho chuckled and placed a hand on Tenchi's head. He rubbed it affectionately even as Tenchi tried to hide his scowl which grew when he noticed Mia smirking at him.

A gust of wind blew their way, tousling their hair. Mia's choppy bangs fell into her eyes and she quickly moved them away. This action caused Yosho to now notice the scar under her left eye.

"Now how did that happen?" he asked pleasantly, successfully keeping his curiosity out of his voice. "No pretty face like yours should be marred by a scar."

"Gramps!" Tenchi exclaimed, turning red, knowing all ready that Mia was sensitive about people asking about her scar.

And predictably, Mia tensed and clenched her fists. "I didn't come here to be questioned about my flaws," she said with much restraint.

Yosho merely nodded slowly. "Of course," he said apologetically. "Please mind an old man for his mouth. It likes to frequently run away from me. Must come with age," he ended with a laugh.

Wanting to lighten the situation, Tenchi also forced himself to join in his grandfather's small joke, but this only caused attention to be directed at him.

"Tenchi, kendo lesson now," Yosho said sternly.

Tenchi's mouth dropped. "Gramps!" he whined. "I was going to show Mia around the house and everything. She can't stay here long."

"Nonsense!" Yosho cut him off. "You will have other opportunities on other days to show her around, but you are past due for your lessons." The finality in his tone was one Tenchi not dare to argue against.

Tenchi turned to Mia. Would there be other opportunities? his expression plainly said. "_Gomen nasai_, Mia," he said grudgingly before he turned towards the gates leading to the house. Then he remembered the gates were locked. As he turned to confront his grandfather about this, a set of keys were tossed at him, which he quickly caught.

"Now don't dillydally," Yosho warned him before he turned to Mia. "Come; let us wait for him over there." He left Mia close to a frail-looking cherry blossom tree at one end of the slightly enclosed space in front of the house. The tree strongly reminded Mia of this old man. Mia watched as this once powerful Guardian place a hand lovingly on the gnarled wood of the tree before he turned around and sat down at its base. He looked at Mia and kept staring at her until she snapped, "What are looking at?"

Yosho didn't say anything for a long moment, but when he did, he surprised her.

"_Domo arigato_," he said humbly and bowed his head to her.

"'Thank you'? For what?" Mia demanded, but her pulse quickened nervously. Did he recognize her from the hospital? "I don't know what you are talking about," she said, a bit too defensively for anyone's ears.

Yosho stared at Mia again as if trying to figure her out, but then a wide smile broke over his weathered face like a sun over rainy clouds. "Neither do I." He chuckled at Mia's bewildered expression. "Must be an old man's babbling nonsense!"

"Gramps? Mia?" came Tenchi's voice.

Yosho Masaki peered around Mia. "Over here, Tenchi!" he shouted with surprising strength and loudness that caught Mia off guard for a moment. However, shouting caused Yosho to fall into a fit of coughing.

"Gramps, are you all right?!" Tenchi asked worriedly as he quickened his pace. His kendo sword bumped repeatedly against his left leg.

Yosho waved off his grandson's concern as his coughing subsided. He let himself gather composure for a moment before he took a deep breath. "I'm afraid I can't train you today, Tenchi," he told his grandson gravely.

Tenchi looked both relieved and worried. He bended over his grandfather, arms outstretched as if to help the old man stand up, but Yosho once more waved him away. He pointed a boney finger at Mia. "She will train you."

"What?" Tenchi and Mia demanded.

"She will train you," Yosho repeated to his grandson. He turned his head to Mia. The light of the afternoon shined on his glasses, making it hard for Mia to see his eyes. She saw his warm smile though. "I've heard Tenchi say of your amazing skill with the sword, and I would very much appreciate it if you could train him in my stead," he told her.

Mia raised an eyebrow. She looked as if to refuse his offer, but then she shrugged in acceptance. "Might as well since I'm wasting time here anyway," she said carelessly.

Tenchi looked from his grandfather to Mia and back again. He had been certain that she would have said no to the request. Tenchi shook his head incredulously. He had always thought his grandfather as some sort of miracle worker, but this was amazing. What had happened in that space of time when he was in the house?

"Boy, get training! I may be old, but I taught you better than to slack off!" Yosho ordered his grandson out of his thoughts.

Tenchi looked up and saw that Mia had suddenly produced a kendo training sword as if from thin air. She was standing in position on the other side of the training space. Tenchi quickly moved into position as well, holding out his sword in front of him. "Ready?" he called.

Mia smirked and nodded. "Always," she murmured as he ran towards her.


	9. Chapter 9

There are many things different between the Spirit World and the Makai. While Spirit World was perpetually bathed in daylight, the Makai had a blood red moon that cast a red tint into the night sky. Their forests were also very different as they were similar. Their forests had no sign of inhabitants in the dark leafy canopies, no sounds of anything living. However, Makaian forests were still much different than those in the Spirit World. Makaian forests had a silence that was very still and deep and hollow, but the silence in Spirit World forests still felt some vibrancy of life. It was not hollow. It was like the very trees were the only beings that the forest needed.

Yet this slightly unnerved Hiei. Training there deep in the Spirit World forest, he constantly felt as if the trees were tall silent giants that were watching his every move. Every time he imbedded his blade into their thick dark bark, he imagined the trees silently wailing in agony.

At least their screams matched the silent, tortured screams in his heart.

Always whenever he was at rest, whenever there was a time where he had to stop and be still, the silent screams in his heart grew until sometimes he thought those screams would burst from his mouth and gain sound. These screams that had become merely whimpers in the last year had regained their vigor the day he had seen _her_ at the arcade.

The few feeble rays of light that managed to pierce through the thick canopy of leaves hit his blade, casting reflections of more light around the enclosed space he trained in. He was not far from the famed river Styx, and it took a lot out of him to suppress the vivid memories of past training sessions with Amaya Toshi.

Everyone had accepted that she was dead. Too readily, in Hiei's opinion. Yet some things just didn't add up. The sight of Kisei's hiding place in the Makai had been burned down to the ground. From what the autopsies had reported after examining remains of bodies found, Kisei had been killed and beheaded. They still have not found his head.

More unnerving was that there had been no reports of Amaya Toshi's body (or remains) having been found. For a while, a body of a demonic woman who had evidently been strangled to death was thought to be Amaya. But when tests were ran on the body, to everyone's relief and then worry, the body was not Amaya's but that of the cat demon Akisu. So if Amaya had survived, wouldn't she have come back to them?

For a long time Hiei had pondered this, frustrated with the fact that there were so many missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle. He was sure with much conviction that it was Amaya who had killed Kisei. Not even Kurama could come up with an alternative theory as to who had killed the elementalist demon. Then there was that question again. If Amaya really had somehow survived and escaped, wouldn't she have found a way to get back to the Spirit World? To him?

Yet deep inside of Hiei, in the back of his mind, the cold and real answer was no. Even he knew that she would have still felt as if she had been betrayed by Koenma. With a choice of whether he would go back to Spirit World or start a new life, he would have chosen the latter had he been given the chance.

Again Hiei imagined the silent screams of agony coming from the trees as his blade relentlessly and more ferociously sliced through their thick bark. He didn't train with the rest of the boys anymore, even though on numerous occasions Kurama had invited him to join them. After he had let slip his theory of the possibility that Amaya was still alive, the other three boys had had mixed reactions ending with them acting with more trepidation around him. So he was cutting himself off with everyone except for Kurama, but that was because the fox reincarnate wouldn't let Hiei completely shut himself from world.

Hiei placed his katana on the ground and sat cross-legged beside it. His breathing was labored and sweat glistened on his bronze skin. He forced himself to close his eyes and instantly fell into meditation. Yet clearing his mind was harder than it had been a month ago, before he met _her_. Visions of those deadened eyes flitted through his chaotic mind.

That girl. . . .

Only one with a soul so broken inside could ever achieve eyes like those. He remembered the two-inch scar running down from her left eye, and despite himself, he wondered what could have happened to her. She was different from any human any of the four boys had encountered - they all had agreed on that.

Yet it was Yusuke who had confronted her that day on the bridge. It was he who had called her out as Amaya. Even now after she had evidently shown that she wasn't their old teammate, there was some seed of doubt. The three others boys were now taking Hiei's theory more seriously. On more than one occasion, Hiei had caught their whispers and their own theories.

It was just as well. At least he wasn't the only one anymore who had some hope that Amaya had lived and was still alive.

Had they all felt it then? That familiar yet unfamiliar aura from this girl? This girl had an aura that was almost _not_ human. Hiei could remember exactly how he had felt when he had her eyes on him; how his senses were reeling and how she reminded him of Amaya.

Could it be that this girl really was Amaya with a different identity? Could it be that Amaya had somehow ended up in the Human World with no recollection of her demonic life? There were still some problems. Hiei never remembered Amaya having a confusing aura. Amaya was definitely not human and this girl had a distinct human aura much like Yusuke's. Also, Amaya's eyes had definitely not been deadened in any way. In fact, as Hiei felt a sharp jab in his gut, Amaya's dark brown eyes were always full of life.

_Stop that_, he harshly commanded himself. He curled his hand into a fist, but even that didn't help the trembling that had suddenly overtaken his body. Even though he had long cooled down from training, his breath still came out laboriously. Hiei quickly blinked. He would not show weakness. In Amaya's memory, he could no longer show weakness. Especially since he felt he was so close to finding her again, if indeed she really was alive.

However, it still came as a shock to him when something hard and round rolled onto his lap. When he looked down, he saw a black gem nestled amongst the folds of his pants. Hiei slowly picked it up and held it in the palm of his calloused hand as if it were something hated yet still precious.

* * *

Mia parried Tenchi's thrusts with ease. She moved gracefully, and with such rhythm that one observer could almost mistake her for a dancer instead of someone training another in kendo. More often than not, Tenchi received the blunt end of her kendo sword through carelessness.

It had been going on like this for a few months now and well into the next year. February was nearing, and the cherry blossoms were about to open their buds. There was just a sense of waiting hanging thickly in the air. In that time, Mia had accepted to train Tenchi in kendo sometimes after school, even after his grandfather had fully recovered.

"Tenchi! You are moving too irregularly and without thought of your moves that your opponent can see your blunders before they even happen!" Yosho Masaki shouted under the tall, thin cherry blossom tree. He had taken to standing underneath that tree every time his grandson and Mia trained, criticizing Tenchi as only a concerned grandfather and stern trainer would. Yosho tried not to wince as Mia swiftly spun around another thrust until she was directly behind Tenchi. She lifted her sword and hit him hard on the head.

"Ow! Mia!" Tenchi groaned as he caught himself from falling on his face. He righted himself and rubbed the bruise forming on the top of his head. "Did it have to be that hard?" he whined, but it was all in good humor.

"Well, it wouldn't have had to be if you were more careful and precise about your thrusts," Yosho told him as he drew closer to the two. His gnarled walking stick sank a few centimeters into the ground each time he had to lean on it. When he drew level with the two teenagers, he took his walking stick and rapped Tenchi on the back of his legs.

Tenchi jumped away, exclaiming in surprise, "Alright! I'll practice more!"

Mia shook her head. "It's not only about practicing more if you don't know what areas you need to improve on," she snapped.

Tenchi rubbed his face with on hand. He felt as if he was being cornered by two tigers. "And could you tell me exactly _what_ that I need improvement on?" he asked exasperatedly.

_Everything_, Mia thought, but aloud she said, "You need center and focus-"

"But I _have_ focus - ow! Gramps!" Tenchi exclaimed as he was hit again on the head.

Yosho drew back his hand and wagged a finger in front of his grandson's face. "Listen to the girl!" he ordered him. "I'm going to the Masaki Shrine to pray for more patience and focus on your part, and I am holding you to keep training while I'm gone!" With that, the old man turned around and left the two teenagers.

Mia angrily placed her free hand on her hip. "Hn, I don't take orders from _anyone_," she said defiantly. Mia walked towards the thin cherry blossom tree and promptly sat down cross-legged after throwing her kendo sword to the side.

Tenchi followed suit, wiping the sweat off of his brow as he took a seat next to Mia. "Wow, that really was a workout!" he said as he slid down a few inches to allow himself the room to lie on his back. He looked up at Mia's stoic expression and smiled brightly at her like a little kid.

Mia rolled her eyes and shook her head before closing her eyes.

"Are you meditating?" Tenchi asked after a short while.

Mia ground her teeth from the interruption. "Yes," she said through clenched teeth. "And you should be doing so, also," she added coldly.

Tenchi sat up. "Alright," he said slowly.

Mia was thankful of the silence that soon surrounded them. She could now turn her thoughts to what truly mattered. It had been almost three months since that encounter with the Spirit Detectives on the bridge, the same day that Yosho Masaki had been sent to the hospital. Since then, she had neither seen nor heard from them, but that wasn't a real mystery. For the last three months, she had made sure not to make anymore contact with any of the four meddlesome boys until it was time.

Mia smirked. Indeed, it was nearly the time. Just this morning, Tenchi had informed her in class that the annual Cherry Blossom Festival was going to take place in the second week of February. On Valentine's Day, to be precise. What made it even better was that not only was Asahikawa High was hosting the festival; it was hosting the two other high schools in the area, Sarayashiki and Meiou. She had so much planned for the Detectives. They won't know what hit them.

"Mia?"

She jumped from surprise, even though Tenchi had softly said her name. Mia turned her head to him and glared. Her normally pale cheeks were tinted pink from embarrassment. She wasn't one to be surprised easily, and so what he had just done was unforgivable in her book. "What do you want, _baka_?" she snapped.

Tenchi blinked rapidly in confusion. What did he do to warrant her irritation at him? Now he was nervous about what he wanted to ask her. His hand went up to his hair tail to twirl it.

Even though she was sitting on the ground, Mia seemed to draw in her full height. "Did you just bother me for nothing?" she demanded dangerously.

Tenchi quickly shook his head. "No, no. I-I wanted to ask you something," he stuttered. When Mia continued to give him ugly looks, the words tumbled unceremoniously from his mouth. "Willyougotothefetivalwithme?"

Mia raised a delicate eyebrow. She had understood what he had said, but why was he asking her? Her initial response was to reject him as horribly as possible. However, she did see the advantage and convenience of his offer.

Tenchi misinterpreted the eyebrow action as one of confusion so he took a deep breath and slowly asked her again to the Cherry Blossom Festival. "As friends, of course," he added quickly. He saw in Mia's eyes there was some sort of battle. "You don't even have to dress up in a kimono like most of the girls are doing," he suggested feebly as if it would help her decision.

Mia held up her hand to shut him up. "I'll go," she resolutely said.

Tenchi felt his jaw sink a little but he quickly regained composure. An explosion of emotions surfaced inside of him. He was above all happy. He showed it by the wide smile spreading on his handsomely angelic features. His stomach seemed to flip when Mia smirked in return.

Yet Mia wasn't feeling happy because she had been asked to the festival and had accepted his invitation. As Tenchi began chatting away about what was going to be at the festival, all she could think about were four familiar boys and the surprise they would feel when they saw her there.

_The winds are all blowing my way._

And so, I am very sorry to say, but this is where the sequel stops. It's on indefinite hiatus because I am working diligently on my very first original story which is being posted on under the name trustnme.

Maybe one day I will pick up this story again.


	10. Chapter 10

Asahikawa High School was hosting the Cherry Blossom Festival this year on Valentine's Day. The days leading up to this bright, Saturday afternoon had been very stressful to both the planning committee and the whole school in their tremendous efforts to impress their two sister schools, Sarayashiki and Meiou. True to the festival's name, hundreds of the blooming trees surrounded the carnival area, creating an intoxicatingly enjoyable atmosphere. Unbeknownst to the visiting schools, many of the trees had been planted two days beforehand.

All three high schools were being joined together to show unity despite the distances all three schools were from each other. Despite their many differences, all the students blended so well that day that not even the teachers could pick out who belonged to what school.

Everyone was so distracted by the various booths set up that it was quite easy for Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Kurama to bring Hiei along unnoticed. They were all gathered next to a ring tossing booth with the two humans avidly trying to see who could beat the other. Yusuke and Kuwabara wore almost identical cotton yukatas rather than a male version of a kimono. The only distinction between their yukatas was the colors, green and blue separately. Neither had at all been impressed with joining the costume competition that could conclude later on that night with the crowning of the emperor and empress of the festival. However, at Keiko's insistence, the two did wear party animal masks.

Hiei wore his regular black attire. He hadn't wanted to come at all in the first place, but at Kurama's request he did. Grudgingly, though. The short demon glanced beside him at the fox reincarnate.

Out of the four, Kurama was the best and most enthusiastically dressed. Already, his kimono was drawing many stares from the girls around the ring tossing booth. Over the white undergarments he wore, Kurama had on a long, dark green shirt with blue flame designs burning across his broad chest.

"Perfect, Kurama," Hiei muttered darkly. "Bringing attention everywhere you go."

Kurama smiled. "Not all intended, I assure you, Hiei," he replied. "I'm actually quite glad that you-" There was a sudden cry of awe a few yards away from them, and everyone at the booth turned around to see what the commotion was about.

Kuwabara, being the tallest, stood on his tip-toes to see over the multitude of heads surrounding them. "Wow!" he suddenly exclaimed. "There's some hot chick with that friend of yours, Kurama!"

As soon as those words left his loud mouth, the people ahead of them suddenly parted to admit the couple attracting everyone's attention.

Tenchi turned to his companion with a bright smile. "You're stealing all the attention from me, Mia!" he joked.

There was a measurable amount of distance between them, which the latter preferred that way. It didn't give anyone the kind of impressions she didn't want or need. Mia's dark brown eyes glanced at Tenchi briefly through the thin tendrils of hair she had allowed to fall over her face. Half of her long black hair was tied up in a complicated knot atop her head and laced with artificial cherry blossoms and jeweled butterflies. A small, bamboo fan obscured the majority of her face from view. Mia's lips twitched unpleasantly at his comment. She almost had second thoughts as to why she agreed to come to the festival in the first place.

Hushed whispers erupted from all sides from their Asahikawa classmates as they continued deeper into the fairgrounds. They all slowly began to recognize the girl beside Tenchi Masaki despite the fan in front of her face, and from the snatches he heard, none could have ever imagined both Mia Yakitoshi being persuaded to come with him to the festival and also dressed so beautifully. Tenchi felt very proud at that moment, especially when envious looks were shot at him from the other boys. Every so often, the bravest of their classmates would come up to them. Everyone adored Mia's kimono, although they were prudent enough to still tread carefully when addressing her directly.

"Come next school day, they will all have forgotten what I wore and be the puny, simple-minded teenagers that they are," Mia murmured darkly from behind her fan when more two girls walked away. "_Bakas_."

Tenchi smiled sheepishly at he looked her over once more. Against every other girl's monochrome kimonos (two, if she was lucky) Mia's kimono was as vibrant as a true geisha. The left half of her silk kimono was red. Little patterns of pink cherry blossoms matched those embroidered on Tenchi's black costume. Mia's other side depicted a snowy day in the mountains. The purple and pink _obi _wrapped around Mia's waist stuck out from the red and white background.

Tenchi looked ahead and instantly spotted a familiar face among the parting crowd. "Mia, I see Suichi over by that booth!" he excitedly said. Before she could protest, Tenchi grabbed her cold hand and swiftly walked over to the other class president. "Suichi!" he called out.

"_Konichiwa_, Tenchi!" Kurama greeted his friend. He felt his other three companions turn to face the two newcomers and indicated them. "You remember my friends from the arcade?"

Tenchi nodded towards them genially. He moved a little out of the way and motioned towards Mia. "And you all remember my friend Mia Yakitoshi as well?"

While Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara merely nodded to the beautifully imposing girl standing silently beside Tenchi Masaki, Hiei felt as if he had been stuck dumb when the fan lowered. He stared into those cold eyes which have been recently haunting his thoughts. Unlike the first time Hiei met her, her eyes didn't look so dead today. Yet, they still held no emotion. No emotion to tell that she was alive. Except hate. Deep within those two, coal-hard eyes were burning hate. But at what? Hiei couldn't help but wonder. At _who_? Again, his eyes followed the two-inch scar that dipped from underneath her left eye.

Mia's lips curled unpleasantly. "Still believe I am someone else?" she sneered at him. She raised her fan and snapped it over her face again. Her gut was clenched almost painfully in anger. It took her the majority of her will to keep from visibly shaking. She turned her head towards Tenchi. "I'm leaving," she said forcefully in a tone that would not be argued with. Mia needed to leave before any more of her was accidentally revealed to Koenma's lackeys. Besides, she had done what she had needed to do.

The five boys watched in surprise as she glided away. Tenchi, who had been stunned the most by her abrupt show of temper, profusely apologized to Kurama for his friend's behavior before running off to catch up to Mia.

Yusuke scratched his head. "Uh, do any of you know what just happened?" he asked.

"I saw her and the shrimp locking eyes on each other!" exclaimed Kuwabara and pointed to the suspect in question, who still stared at the spot where they had last seen Mia's retreating back.

Hiei looked up at that moment, glaring most particularly at Kuwabara. "What did you just call me, _baka_?" he almost whispered.

But before a real fight could ensue between the two, Keiko suddenly popped up next to Yusuke, nearly scaring the daylights out of him. "Yusuke Uremeshi, you promised me that we'd go on the Ferris wheel!" his girlfriend shouted accusingly.

"But Keiko, it's not even nig-ow, _ow_, OW!" he exclaimed when Keiko grabbed hold of his earlobe and proceeded to drag him away without another word under the amused eyes of his three friends.

Kuwabara laughed loudly, his previous argument with Hiei already forgotten. "Hey, that reminds me. I'm gonna go look for my gang now," he told the remaining two.

Kurama waved as Kuwabara turned around. "If you see Yusuke, tell him we're meeting in front of the stage before the costume contest!" he called. An idle wave indicated his words were heard, and then it was only him and Hiei left. With nothing better to do, they began to walk around. It didn't take Kurama long for him to ask about the incident with Mia Yakitoshi. "Did you tell her anything?" he pressed delicately, indicating something more than verbally spoken words that had not been exchanged.

Hiei scowled at a distant cotton candy maker booth. "No. The _baka ningen _left on her own free will," he responded emotionlessly. There had almost been a twinge of regret at her leaving, but Hiei had effectively disregarded the weak feeling after Kurama's friend had left soon after her.

"I don't really believe anymore that she could be completely human."

Hiei looked up at these words and noticed a calculating look in those emerald eyes.

"You only need to ask me, Hiei," Kurama murmured after he felt a slight push on his mental barrier.

Unabashed, Hiei demanded, "So you also believe she could have demon ancestors?" This argument has continuously prevailed among the four boys since their confrontation with the mysterious girl on the bridge. Although none of them could let go with the sliver of hope that this Mia Yakitoshi could really be Amaya Toshi with amnesia, they couldn't also let go with the fact that this girl had a human-like aura surrounding her – something Amaya never had.

The fox reincarnate sighed contemplatively. "From what I have gathered from Tenchi, Mia lives alone in the city. She came to Asahikawa two years ago, so that means if Mia really is Amaya"-Hiei glared at the unexpected mention of the name-"then what happened to those two years after the fall of Kisei's mansion? There is no logical explanation of how a demon could develop human-like characteristics unless they were reincarnated as Yoko Kurama was. Even then, if she was reincarnated, that would mean Amaya would be a mere four-year-old now."

Hiei conceded to this twisted argument. They briefly stopped at an ice cream booth at Hiei's insistence before the conversation picked up a more difficult subject to Kurama's heart. "Maya Lain is friends with Tenchi." Hiei wisely chose not to include Mia Yakitoshi in the mix, given the strong disdain she projected for other people in general.

Kurama shifted uncomfortably under Hiei's penetrating gaze. "So it seems." His tone had a sense of resignation.

"For our plans to succeed, you must forget about your petty past with her," Hiei insisted. "You gave her the memory-wiping pollen for a reason, or do I have to administer a dose to you as well?" he asked sarcastically.

Kurama nodded slowly in agreement. A sad smile flickered underneath his red bangs. "I think it best that I stay away from her as much as possible."

Hiei rolled his eyes slightly. "Which might be a problem in of itself considering the child's assignment for you and the Detective. My offer still stands."

Kurama chuckled. He readily welcomed Hiei's biting humor – something that came by very rarely nowadays. "No, Hiei. That won't be necessary. I'd rather be the one to keep those bittersweet memories of something that couldn't be. It was to protect Maya then, and I shall continue to protect her from me now."

* * *

The large stage lights blared brightly on Tenchi Masaki, the chosen class president who had been overwhelmingly elected to give the honor of crowning the emperor and empress of the Cherry Blossom Festival. A slight sheen of sweat had developed on Tenchi's forehead from the heated glare, but neither it nor the heat prevented the wide smile on his ecstatic face as he announced Suichi Minamino as the nearly unanimous-pledged emperor.

Despite being embarrassed with the both cheers and catcall whistles from his fellow classmates and friends, Kurama walked graciously onto the erected stage at the far side of the fairgrounds, just across the giant Ferris wheel. The tall, red-haired boy shook Tenchi's proffered hand before the latter stepped off the stage from the side. To Kurama's surprise and discomfort, Maya Lane stepped out from the other side of the stage with a plastic gold crown in her hands. She herself was the one to place it on his head, to Kurama's further awkwardness. In the back of his mind, Kurama could feel Hiei trying to insistently penetrate his mental barrier. He wouldn't meet Maya's glittering brown eyes after he straightened and waved loftily to the enthusiastic audience.

However, Kurama was distracted by a commotion happening out of the corner of his eye on the side of the stage Tenchi had stepped into.

Beside Tenchi Masaki was Mia Yakitoshi, and they appeared to be arguing. Tenchi was pointing towards Kurama in earnest with Mia responding by shaking her head vigorously in furious protest. Because of the high level of noise coming from all around him, Kurama could not hear a word of what they were saying. It was difficult to read Mia's lips because most of her face was obscured by her hair, but he could read Tenchi's lips. From what Kurama could gather in the space of a few seconds, Tenchi was trying to convince Mia to go onto the stage. _They voted for you!_ Tenchi kept repeatedly saying. Then, to Kurama's utter amazement, Tenchi grabbed Mia's shoulders, spun her around to face the stage, and gave her one mighty push from behind.

Mia took hold of the skirts of her kimono to keep from stumbling, but her concentration did not stop her from realizing that the crowd surrounding the stage had gone very quiet when she was forced into the spotlight. Mia shot Tenchi a nasty glare before she coolly straightened up and surveyed the audience coldly.

Tenchi took that moment to step onto the stage after her. He wrapped an arm around her waist and presented her to the crowd. "After careful consideration by our panel of judges based on popular opinion throughout the day, they have concluded that this year's empress is none other than Asahikawa's Mia Yakitoshi!" Tenchi announced over a microphone. He stepped away from his seething friend and began to clap. Slowly, as the shock began to wear off, people, especially those from the two other high schools who didn't know Mia's reputation, began to enthusiastically join him until thundering applause and cheers were all that were heard.

Maya, grinning brightly like the lights above them, came onto the stage again, but this time, with a silver crown for Mia.

Kurama could feel the burning embarrassment and resentment coming from the newly crowned empress and couldn't help but smile. He extended his hand towards Mia, who, after a long moment of silently staring at his open palm, stiffly stretched forth her own cold hand and placed it in his. This really got the crowd going.

"Kiss! Kiss!" one particularly loud boy in the back shouted, and this started a growing chant.

Then, out of nowhere, another boy Tenchi recognized immediately as Toguro rushed out from the side of the stage. Like in slow motion, Tenchi and everyone else watched as Mia was flung headlong into Suichi Minamino, whose emerald eyes widened. He quickly stooped down with his arms open to catch her, and in the process, their heads collided. As the crowd screamed its approval the moment the emperor and empress' lips accidentally touched, Tenchi, Maya, and surprisingly, even Hiei felt the swift fire of jealously had been unwittingly kindled.

The moment was gone in the blink of an eye, however, when Mia immediately pulled away from her savior's arms. She reared her hand back. Kurama fell hard on his backside. He watched with almost a dazed expression on his face as Mia glared daggers at him. "_Baka yaro_," she hissed before spinning around. Amidst the crowd's catcalls and general noise, she angrily stomped off the stage without so much as a glare at Tenchi's shocked figure.

As Mia rushed off the stage, she could feel a familiar pair of scarlet eyes burning holes into the back of her head. Despite her anger, despite her embarrassment, a small smirk appeared across her lips.

No one, not even Mia, realized there were dark clouds hovering in the skies.

* * *

Thanks to those who reviewed and demanded that I take up this story again. I'd really love more reviews!

Yes, so as of this summer, I will be going back and forth between this story and my original one!


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